“Israel assassin, Paris 1 accomplice! » This is one of the many slogans that resonated at the PMF (Tolbiac) center at Paris 1 University this week. From Tuesday to Thursday, many students mobilized against the ongoing massacres in Palestine and Lebanon, as well as the complicity of their university with the colonial state.
During these three days, the tutorial classes held on the floors of the Tolbiac towers were blocked, while the hall of the establishment and certain amphitheaters were requisitioned for the mobilization. Hand-painted signs were hung on the walls of the hall: “Boycott Israeli universities” or “Stop complicity Paris 1”in reference to the agreements between Paris 1 and the universities of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem which participate in the war effort and the improvement of weapons used for the oppression of the Palestinian people. In the courtyard, Palestinian flags are displayed, as a snub to the ban formulated by the president of the center a few weeks earlier on the collective The Raised Fist to make the colors of Palestine visible from the street.
In fact, to preserve its partnerships – not only with Israeli universities but also with arms companies like Thalès which hold scientific chairs at the university – the presidency has been using repression for more than a year. After the ban on stands, meetings on Palestine, and the refusal to vote on any motion of support for the Palestinian people until last month under pressure from elected student and staff representatives, the administration chose to close the center to students not having classes in the lecture hall in Tolbiac. A way to break any dynamic towards the extension of the mobilization.
“This repression is not new, we suffered it last year. In the spring, 86 students were arrested because they occupied an amphitheater at La Sorbonne, but this determination of Paris 1 to show solidarity with the Palestinian people strengthens our own determination, and after more than a year of genocide, we There are several hundred in the General Assembly today! » claims Lyno, activist of Raised Fistduring the General Assembly this Thursday.
This criminalization of support for Palestine accelerated with the appointment of Patrick Hetzel to the Ministry of Higher Education. Last week, four students from Science Po Paris, mobilized last year, were threatened with permanent exclusion by the minister even though the school management had declared itself in favor of lifting disciplinary proceedings against them. against them.
Despite this hunt for pro-Palestinian students, General Assemblies have been held every day since Tuesday, bringing together up to 200 people to organize the continuation of the movement and discuss demands. On the agenda: how to impose the breakdown of partnerships at the presidency, how to deal with the repression of support for Palestine, how to expand the movement to other university centers, etc.
“We are mobilized because we refuse to study for genocidaires, we are mobilized because we refuse to allow our knowledge to serve the Israeli war effort! » explains Carolina, Le Poing Levé activist and political science student at Paris 1, greatly applauded by the Assembly. In fact, the question of knowing for whom and why to study is central in the reflection of the mobilized students, and behind Palestine, it is more broadly the desire to put one's skills at the service of the needs of the majority of the population rather than serving the needs of the colonial and imperialist powers which express themselves.
In this sense, and while on Thursday evening the presidency sought to discredit the mobilization by sending an email to students to denounce that “a few dozen students” would prevent others from studying, The Raised Fist replied to him: “among the more than 40,000 students at Paris 1, how many want to continue studying as if nothing had happened when there are more than 100,000 dead in the Gaza Strip, millions displaced in the region, and hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children threatened by famine organized by Israel? How many want to continue studying as if nothing had happened when no Gazans of our age can study anymore due to the systematic destruction of education and higher education infrastructures by Netanyahu's army? How many want to continue studying as if nothing had happened when our university maintains its partnerships with Israel and companies complicit in genocide and colonization at all costs, forcing our knowledge and skills to be indirectly involved in barbarism? in progress ? »
Strengthened by this refusal to study when massacres are underway in the Middle East, the students agreed during the last AGM this Thursday to continue the mobilization next week, until satisfaction is obtained. A determination that has already inspired other schools: the ENS, the École des Mines and PSL were also mobilized this week against the genocide and partnerships with Israel.
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