After several days of student mobilization to protest against Israeli strikes in Gaza, an exchange between management and Sciences-po students is to take place this Thursday. Student unions announced a few days ago the holding of a “town hall”, which should make it possible to “continue the dialogue and deepen it”, writes Unef.
This term is directly imported from the United States. It means “a building in which officials and employees of local government work and in which public meetings can take place”, defines the Cambridge dictionary. More broadly, the expression applies to a meeting between representatives and members of the same institution, during which exchanges are organized.
“Meet the student body to hear them”
A “town hall” originally refers to meetings between local politicians and their voters, during which elected officials answer questions. Nikki Haley, candidate in the Republican primaries against Donald Trump, led one in early January in New Hampshire, a few days before the vote. A spectator asked the candidate: “what is the cause of the civil war in the United States?” » Nikki Haley sparked an outcry by not mentioning slavery in her response.
But this same model is found in other institutions, such as universities. Town halls are a way for an institution’s leadership “to meet with the student body to hear from them on topics of interest or to discuss specific upcoming legislation,” writes University of Texas State University. North Carolina (United States). The university specifies that this system has already been used to discuss the pricing of studies and the establishment’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Sciences-po Paris students should address several questions on Thursday. On the one hand that of the school’s partnerships with Israeli universities and organizations: the demonstrators of recent days are demanding their elimination. They also demand that “Sciences-po take a public position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” and “clearly condemn the genocide in Gaza”, explained a member of the Palestine committee in our columns.
The Student Union also demands “the definitive cessation of all disciplinary procedures, as unfair as they are unjustified, initiated since last week’s sit-in” in the premises of Sciences-po Paris. Student organizations already obtained the suspension of these sanctions last week.
What modalities for the “town hall” of Sciences-po?
Thursday’s “town hall” will take place “in compliance with the classic rules of debate,” the school management told students in an email, obtained by Le Figaro. The meeting must take place “without banners, flags or slogans”, “with limited speaking time for each intervention”. The presence of students, but also of teachers, will be possible within “the limit of available places”.
Five student organizations – Nova, Solidaires Student, Student Union, UNI and Unef – will be able to speak for three minutes each, before the microphone is held out to the assembly for possible questions. The debate is expected to last two hours, according to the daily.
It is difficult to know in advance whether Sciences-po management intends to make new decisions at the end of this “town hall”. “It should not be a face-to-face meeting between management and the mobilized students, but a debate with all stakeholders: teachers, students and employees,” Jean explained to Le Monde on Tuesday. Bassères, administrator of the IEP. He already seems to have taken sides on the subject of partnerships with Israeli organizations, explaining that “it would be damaging to stop them. I am ready to explain my position, but I do not plan to give up these partnerships. »
