While actions are increasing on French campuses in support of Gaza, Sciences Po Paris hosted an internal debate on the Middle East on Thursday, May 2. “It was a tough debate, with fairly clear positions, a lot of emotion and so I now hope for everyone to regain calm” before the exams scheduled for Monday, said Jean Bassères, the provisional administrator of the prestigious Parisian school.
He admitted to staying “extremely cautious about the outcome of events”while the mobilization is spreading in France, echoing the growing mobilization on campuses in the United States, marked by the deployment of the police on several sites.
The debate had barely ended, the mobilized student organizations – Student Union and Solidaires – called for a sit-in on Thursday afternoon in the entrance hall of Sciences Po.
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The provisional administrator admitted having “took fairly firm positions on certain subjects”refusing “very clearly the creation of a working group which was proposed by certain students to investigate our relations with Israeli universities”.
“After a start where the debates were calm, the tension increased at the end”testified to Agence France Presse Hugo, 22 years old, master’s student at Sciences Po, for whom “the main information is the refusal of the director to create a working group to re-evaluate Sciences Po’s partnerships”.
“There were clear requests and there was no clear answer”regretted a master’s student in urban planning, who refused to give her name, castigating “administrative sluggishness”.
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“Balanced and firm path” of the minister, according to France Universités
After a mobilization marred by tensions last Friday, the movement was suspended at Sciences Po Paris: the management had agreed to organize an internal debate “open to all Sciences Po communities”qualified for “townhall”term used in the United States for a large public meeting.
At the request of the students to question the “school partnerships with universities and organizations supporting the State of Israel”the Minister of Higher Education Sylvie Retailleau repeated Thursday morning that it was “there is no question of universities taking an institutional position in favor of this or that demand in the ongoing conflict in the Middle East”.
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The minister asked university presidents to ensure ” preserve the order “ public, using “the fullest extent of powers” available to them, particularly in terms of disciplinary sanctions in the event of disturbances or recourse to the police, during a videoconference intervention at the board of directors of France Universités.
At the end of this exchange, France Universités, which brings together 116 members, including 74 universities, “welcomed the Minister’s determination to take a balanced and firm path towards a return to calm”.
In Lille, the IEP and the ESJ blocked
Actions have multiplied in France in recent days, mainly on Sciences Po sites in the regions, but also in some universities. All in an electric political context, in the middle of the European campaign, La France Insoumise is notably accused by the right of“instrumentalization” movement.
Thursday morning in Lille, the political studies institute remained closed and access to the higher school of journalism (ESJ) was blocked and classes canceled.
In Saint-Etienne, the blocking of one of the Jean Monnet University sites by around fifteen students demanding a ceasefire in Gaza resumed Thursday morning, AFP noted. They did not reach an agreement with the university presidency for the organization of a conference on the situation in Gaza, according to a student representative.
The police intervened on Tuesday at this Saint-Etienne site to dislodge pro-Palestinian activists. The police also intervened on Monday to evacuate demonstrators from the Sorbonne after having already ended a nighttime occupation of a Sciences Po Paris site last week, both times at the request of Prime Minister Gabriel Attal.
According to the student organization Le Poing Levé, the Jourdan campus of the Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS) in Paris was also blocked on Thursday.
