The student union L’Alternative, joined by some of the local sections of the UNEF and members of its national leadership, announced this week the creation of a new organization, the Student Union.
“ Seventeen local sections of Unef and eight members of the national leadership have decided to leave the organization and join forces with the Alternative to create a new student union: the Student Union. After several years of division in the student movement, a real reunification of student unionism is taking place “said L’Alternative in a press release.
The Unef reacted in a press release entitled “The Unef is not for sale, it belongs to the students! “, believing that” more than the necessary reunification of the student movement, it is the very role of trade unionism that is questioned by the creation of a new student organization “. ” The right to disagree, the cornerstone of the organization of our debates, must not disappear in favor of the desire for hegemony of a single group. “, continued the Unef.
According to Eléonore Schmitt, so far spokesperson for L’Alternative, a union itself resulting from a split from Unef in 2019, the new union will be present in some ” 51 establishments ” against ” thirty or forty currently for L’Alternative. “ The sections of the Unef who join us “, either “ 17 for the moment out of about forty », represent « almost half of the organization “, she added.
The creation of the Student Union must be officially ratified during a congress on April 22 and 23. It follows a “ internal crisis within the UNEF which had lasted since October, with members who suffered pressure and violence from the presidency “, according to Eléonore Schmitt.
” We are starting in a context of democratic crisis within the UNEF, a climate of violence, and in a desire to recompose the student movement, to unify it more “Confirmed to AFP Hugo Jean, former member of the national office of Unef, who joins the new union. “ Our objectives are simple: to amplify the mobilization to obtain the withdrawal of the pension reform, and to put a stop to the neo-liberal policies of Macron “, summed up Karel Talali, a new member also from the management of Unef.
The purpose of this creation of organization is the reunification of the student movement, of student unionism, in one and the same house.
Karel Talali, student in law and political science, one of the resigning leaders of Unef justifies the creation of this new union
(with AFP)