Paris but also Lausanne, Berlin, Montreal, Mexico City and even Sydney… The student movement against the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip continues to expand in universities around the world.
See as well : VIDEO. From the United States to Sciences Po, the pro-Palestine mobilization of students around the world
Columbia to New York, the epicenter
The wave left the United States on February 17 and concerns, or has concerned, around forty universities from east to west of the country, recalling the protest movement against the war in Vietnam at the end of the 1960s. .
Read also: INTERVIEW. American campuses under tension: “We are witnessing clashes of points of view”
In total, nearly 2,000 people were arrested, according to a report established by several American media. In recent days, the police have carried out a series of dismantlings military man of pro-Palestinian camps, such as at New York University (NYU) on Friday, at the request of the establishment. Demonstrators barricaded in the prestigious Columbia University, the New York epicenter of the student mobilization, were thus chased away.
At the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), dozens of students were arrested. The American daily The New York Times recounts, in a long investigation, how the police were slow to intervene on campus while counter-protesters violently tried to put an end to the movement.
Unlike other institutions, Brown University (Rhode Island, east) agreed with the demonstrators to dismantle their encampment in exchange for a vote on a possible “divestment” of “corporations that enable and profit from the genocide in Gaza”.
Long silent, President Joe Biden insisted on Thursday that “order must prevail” .
Protesters expelled from Humboldt University in Berlin
In Germany, the police intervened on Friday May 3 to evacuate the pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered in front of Humboldt University in Berlin, in the center of the capital, reportsAFP. Some demonstrators were expelled ” by force “ after refusing another proposed location, Berlin police said on X.
Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner criticized the protest, writing on “situations like in the United States or France”.
A large encampment in Montreal
In Canada, the pro-Palestinian student movement has established itself in several cities including Vancouver, Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal. The first encampment erected, and the largest, that of the prestigious McGill University in Montreal, began on April 27 and grew.
Hundreds of demonstrators have fortified their camp in recent days due to the threat of dismantling by the police. According to Radio Canada the demands are the same as in American universities: “An immediate ceasefire in Gaza and a boycott of Israel. » They say they are determined to occupy the premises as long as necessary, until McGill cuts all financial or academic ties with Israel. According to our colleagues, “the value of this investment was nearly $520,000 in 2023”.
The management of the establishment declared on Wednesday that they wanted the camp to be dismantled ” without delay “stating that it was a request ” non-negotiable “. According to her, “a number of demonstrators are not part of the student community”.
The Montreal police, who say they are advocating an outcome “peaceful” of the situation, has not yet intervened to dismantle the camp.
Peaceful gatherings in Sydney
In Australia, at the University of Sydney, hundreds of pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli demonstrators came face to face on Friday. Despite some tense exchanges, the two gatherings remained peaceful and the police did not intervene, notes theAFP.
Pro-Palestinian activists have been camped for ten days on a lawn opposite the sprawling Gothic building of the University of Sydney, a bastion of Australian academic knowledge.
Like their American counterparts, protesters want the University of Sydney to cut its ties with Israeli institutions and refuse donations from arms companies.
Students mobilized in Mexico
In Mexico City, dozens of pro-Palestinian students from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the country’s largest, set up camp in the capital on Thursday, chanting: “Long live free Palestine!” » And “From the river to the sea, Palestine will win!” ». In particular, they asked the Mexican government to break diplomatic and commercial relations with Israel.
An occupation planned until Monday at the University of Lausanne
In Switzerland, around a hundred pro-Palestinian students have occupied the entrance hall of the Géopolis building at the University of Lausanne (UNIL) since Thursday evening, demanding an academic boycott of Israeli institutions and an immediate ceasefire. Among the claims, according to RTS : the ceasefire, the return of UNRWA funding or even “stopping the repression against the Palestine solidarity movement”.
The occupation continued Friday May 3 and is expected to last until Monday, “as long as the movements remain peaceful”according to the rector cited by our colleagues.
In Dublin, Trinity College students set up a camp
Students from the prestigious Trinity College University in Dublin have set up an encampment on the establishment’s campus to protest against the Israeli military offensive in Gaza. Since Friday evening, they have been blocking the entrance to a building, the library which contains “the Book of Kells”, a famous medieval manuscript that many tourists come to see in the Irish capital. The demonstrators described their mobilization as a “camp in solidarity with Palestine”.
In France, a movement that could extend to high schools
The police on Friday evacuated the pro-Palestinian activists who had occupied the prestigious Parisian school Sciences Po, which accommodates 5,000 to 6,000 students, since the day before.
This comes a week after a mobilization already punctuated by tensions at Sciences Po Paris and a previous evacuation of premises, “91 people were evacuated, without incident”specified the Paris police headquarters.
Outside the capital, the other regional sites of the Institute of Political Studies – such as that of Rennes where the police expelled the organizers of a blockade on Tuesday – are the main ones concerned.
Thursday morning, the IEP in Lille (North) remained closed, and classes were canceled at the blocked higher school of journalism (ESJ). Like a site at Jean-Monnet University in Saint-Etienne (Loire), where around fifteen students demanded a ceasefire in Gaza.
The movement could extend to high schools: the High School Union is calling for a blockade of establishments throughout France on Monday May 6 and Tuesday May 7, to demand a ceasefire in Gaza.
