Sciences-Po Paris: students evacuated by the police

The police entered Sciences-Po Paris before noon on Friday to evacuate the pro-Gaza activists who had occupied it since the day before: the renowned establishment and its campuses remain the epicenter in France of a mobilization in favor of the Palestinians.

The protest movement is inspired by the situation in the United States, where the campuses of around forty universities are experiencing a wave of mobilization, with muscular interventions by the police. “The firmness is and will remain total,” the French government said on Friday.

“Regarding the situation in the establishments, some could be resolved through dialogue. For others, requisitions by university presidents were made and the police intervened immediately. This firmness is paying off: 23 disturbed sites were evacuated yesterday,” the same Source said.

According to a Sciences-Po student who spoke to the press, “around fifty students were still present in the premises on rue Saint-Guillaume” when the police entered the building. , a week after a mobilization marred by tensions at Sciences-Po Paris.

Closure decided the day before

The main buildings of Sciences-Po Paris were closed Friday morning, by management decision after a new occupation by a few dozen students mobilized for Gaza, and the police blocked the street, AFP journalists noted.

The Palestine Committee, which held a press briefing broadcast on social networks around 10:45 a.m., announced “refusing the compromise” proposed by the management of Sciences-Po Paris. They say they expect “an imminent intervention by the police” to dislodge them.

A little earlier, two Sciences-Po students, not wishing to give their identity, declared to the press present at the end of rue Saint-Guillaume that “ten students are on hunger strike”, seven on the Sciences-Po campus. Po Paris and three on that of Reims, in “solidarity with the Palestinian victims”.

“70 to 80 people” occupied the hall

According to the management of the prestigious school, “around 70 to 80 people” currently occupy the hall of Sciences-Po Paris, at 27 rue Saint-Guillaume, in the center of the capital.

Actions carried out by students in support of Gaza take place mainly in Sciences-Po establishments across France, but few within universities, while in the United States the campuses of around forty universities are experiencing a wave mobilization, with muscular interventions by the police.

Place de la Sorbonne, a few hundred meters from Sciences Po Paris, the Union of Jewish Students of France (UEJF) was to hold a “dialogue table” for a good part of the day, with several guests, including the designer Joann Sfar (“The Rabbi’s Cat”).

“We want to prove that it is not true that we cannot talk about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. To do this, we must put aside those who point the finger at Jewish students as complicit in the genocide,” declared the president of the UEJF, Samuel Lejoyeux, on Radio J.

Lille journalism school still blocked

In Lille, the entrance to the ESJ (the Lille journalism school) was still blocked, according to an AFP journalist. Students who came to take their exams at Sciences-Po Lille entered through the back of the building, after checking their student cards.

Thursday evening, the management of Sciences-Po Paris – which welcomes 5,000 to 6,000 students in the capital – announced the closure of its main premises and invited students and employees to telework. After an internal debate on the Middle East organized Thursday morning by the management, which the students of the Palestine Committee considered “disappointing”, the latter carried out a “peaceful sit-in” in the school hall.

At the end of this two-hour debate, in which teachers and students participated, the school’s provisional administrator, Jean Bassères, reiterated that there was no question, as some students were demanding, of ” investigate” Sciences-Po’s relations with Israeli universities.

AFP

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