AFP
Pro-Palestinian mobilization: new tensions around the Sorbonne and Sciences Po
The police intervened again on Tuesday at the Sorbonne University and in front of Sciences Po Paris to put an end to gatherings and blocking actions by pro-Palestinian activists, echoing the government’s repeated messages of firmness. Less than 24 hours after Prime Minister Gabriel Attal recalled Monday evening that there would “never be a right to blockade” in French universities, the police entered the Sorbonne to evacuate pro-Palestinian demonstrators who had been occupying an amphitheater for around two hours, in “solidarity” with Gaza, noted an AFP journalist. The activists, who were around a hundred inside according to corroborating sources, were taken out in dribs and drabs in a side street of the university, sometimes carried at arm’s length by officers. The police headquarters reported 39 arrests. Nearby, kept at a good distance by a police cordon, dozens of demonstrators proclaimed “Palestine will live, Palestine will conquer.” Students mobilized for the Palestinian cause had announced at the end of afternoon occupy this amphitheater, “with tents”, “in solidarity” with Gaza and “against the repression of pro-Palestinian student movements”. By confirming the occupation of “certain spaces in the building”, the Paris rectorate had told AFP to follow the situation “with great attention”, in “link with the ministry”. – “Putting pressure” -After a previous occupation, on April 29, by around fifty demonstrators inside the Sorbonne , the police had already intervened, at the request of the Prime Minister. With this new action, the activists, who chanted “Rafah, Rafah, we are with you”, intended to “put pressure” on the governments while the The Israeli army deployed tanks Tuesday into Rafah and took control of the border crossing with Egypt in the southern Gaza Strip, cutting off access for humanitarian aid to the besieged Palestinian territory. “We cannot stay silent in the face of injustice and suffering. We call on our universities and our government to listen to our voices and act accordingly,” wrote the “students of the Palestine committees of the Sorbonne” in a statement. Echoing the mobilization on American campuses, several actions have taken place since few weeks in France, mainly around the Sciences Po sites. Without making a splash, this mobilization ignites the political debate in the middle of the European campaign. Gabriel Attal recalled Monday evening, at the dinner of the Representative Council of Jewish institutions of France (Crif), its firm line: “We will never accept that a manipulated minority claims to make the law. No one should prevent others from working, from studying, from revising.” New demonstration of this firmness displayed on Tuesday with interventions by the police also in front of Sciences Po, on two occasions, to disperse pro-Palestinian gatherings. – Examinations canceled in Le Havre – They first dispersed around twenty students who blocked access with trash cans and street furniture to demand, as in recent weeks, an investigation into partnerships with Israeli universities and “the stop the repression of mobilized students and sanctions”. Two arrests took place, according to the police headquarters. The exams were however able to start normally, according to the management of Sciences Po. A second gathering of students was then evacuated around a hundred people, organized at midday by the Palestine committee of Sciences Po. LFI MP Louis Boyard, present, had a lively exchange with the leader of the Les Républicains (LR) list in the European elections, François -Xavier Bellamy, who also came on site. On the Sciences Po site in Reims, around thirty demonstrators were also evacuated after trying to block access to students, according to the Marne prefecture. Exams were canceled at Sciences Po in Le Havre due to a blockage. Students also took part in a larger demonstration which brought together 1,300 people at the end of the afternoon, according to the police headquarters, at Place de la République, in Paris, at the call in particular of the CAPJPO-EuroPalestine association. “We are here in support of all the students who are mobilizing,” Hania Hamidi, general secretary of the Unef student union, told AFP. , denouncing “an unprecedented repression of student mobilizations in France”.cg-tll-asm-alh-alu/dlm
