The police once again entered the Sorbonne on the evening of May 7 to evacuate 86 students gathered in solidarity with Gaza from an amphitheater. Less than twenty-four hours after the declarations of the Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, according to which there will be no “never right to block” in French universities, these arrests follow two others, on the same day, of two students from Sciences Po, while around a hundred activists from the Palestine committee sought to block access to the school.
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The Sorbonne students were placed in police custody for “voluntary damage, participation in a group with a view to preparing violence against people or destruction-degradation of property, rebellion, violence against a person holding public authority or intrusion into the premises of an educational establishment school in a meeting with the aim of disturbing the tranquility or good order of the establishment”details the Paris prosecutor’s office.
In a message, posted on X Tuesday evening, the Minister of Higher Education, Sylvie Retailleau, affirmed that “several public officials were violently pushed and attacked by a group of individuals who hoped to occupy the Sorbonne”. “The rectorate will file a complaint without delay”she added.
At midday on Wednesday, some 150 people gathered at Place de l’Hôtel-de-Ville, in Paris, to denounce a “always more police response” to the pro-Palestinian movement and demand the release of the arrested activists. Several dozen still remained in police custody nearly fifteen hours after their arrest.
“Either in custody or at attention”
Released at 11 a.m., after a night spent at the police station on 3e arrondissement, Jéhanne (she did not wish to give her name, like all the students mentioned by their first name), a philosophy student at the University of Paris-I Panthéon-Sorbonne, reported to the World having witnessed “violence carried out by Sorbonne security guards”before the police arrived. “One student had a split lip, another had a broken tooth”she specifies.
“We knew that blocking the Sorbonne was a risky undertaking, but we had imagined a democratic impulse on the part of the university management. It has not happened “she continues, affirming that the students arrested had been “scattered in several police stations”. The young woman, along with nine other activists, found themselves “alongside those arrested for aggravated violence with a weapon. It’s absolutely disproportionate to have put us there”she is alarmed.
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