The police intervened on Tuesday at the prestigious Sorbonne University in Paris to put an end to an occupation by pro-Palestinian activists, echoing messages of firmness from the French government.
Less than 24 hours after Prime Minister Gabriel Attal recalled that there would “never be a right to blockade” in French universities, the police entered the Sorbonne to evacuate pro-Palestinian demonstrators who were occupying for two hours an amphitheater, in “solidarity” with Gaza, noted an AFP journalist.
The activists, who numbered around a hundred, were slowly taken out into a side street of the university, sometimes carried at arm’s length by agents. The police headquarters reported 39 arrests.
Nearby, kept at a good distance by a police cordon, dozens of demonstrators shouted “Palestine will live, Palestine will win”.
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 Israeli army deployed tanks on Tuesday in Rafah and took control of the crossing border with Egypt, in the south of the Gaza Strip, cutting off access for humanitarian aid to the besieged Palestinian territory.
Echoing the mobilization on American campuses, several actions have taken place in recent weeks in France, mainly around the Sciences Po sites. Without spreading the word, this mobilization is igniting the political debate in the middle of the European campaign.
