Emmanuel Macron denounced, this Wednesday, March 13, during the Council of Ministers, “unspeakable and completely intolerable” comments reported during a pro-Palestinian mobilization the day before at Sciences Po Paris.
The Head of State “clearly and firmly reiterated his position: yes, university establishments are autonomous, but this autonomy in no way justifies the slightest beginning of separatism”, declared government spokesperson Prisca Thevenot.
Mobilization day
Tuesday morning, around a hundred students occupied the main amphitheater of the prestigious school of political sciences, a melting pot for French elites, as part of a “day of European university mobilization for Palestine”.
A student from the Union of Jewish Students of France (UEJF) was then “prevented from accessing the amphitheater” where the action was taking place, and “accusatory remarks were made (from the platform, Editor’s note) to against” the student association, denounced Sciences Po on the social network
“Witnesses were heard” by the Minister of Higher Education Sylvie Retailleau who visited the site on Tuesday, according to Prisca Thevenot who invited “the young student who was the victim of these comments (…) to present before the courts.”
The management of Sciences-Po announced that it would contact “the disciplinary section with a view to sanctioning these intolerable actions”, considering from the AFP “that several red lines have been crossed”.
“An “atmospheric anti-Semitism”
According to a student present in the amphitheater interviewed by AFP, the young woman member of the UEJF was prevented from entering “for security reasons, because she had previously intimidated pro-Palestinian students”. “She is the only one who was not able to enter. Other members of the UEJF attended the debates,” she said, on condition of anonymity.
“Limit crossed at Sc Po (…). UEJF students are attacked as Jews and Zionists,” denounced the student association on X, while the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (Crif), Yonathan Arfi, deplored an “atmospheric anti-Semitism”.
LFI deputy Aymeric Caron sent a “bravo to the Sciences Po students who are mobilizing against the ongoing genocide in Gaza” on Wednesday on all students and all faculties who are mobilizing against the ongoing genocide.”
“What happened has a name: anti-Semitism,” writes Aurore Bergé, Minister for Equality between Women and Men, also on X.