On May 3, 2024, French police carried out an evacuation operation at the Sciences Po school in Paris. Student activists had occupied university buildings to protest Israel’s war once morest Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
An eyewitness told Reuters that French police removed many of the 70 or so students and activists who remained there from the buildings. Unlike some campuses in USAthe French demonstrations were peaceful and there were no signs of violence during the removal of the students.
The Faculty of Political Studies has been at the center of the French student movements which, however, remain smaller in scale compared to those in the US.
The university was closed today and a heavy police force had been deployed around the main building.
Zak, a student who declined to give his last name, said he was one of regarding 70 who spent the night at the university. He told Reuters that this morning the activists rejected an ultimatum from the university administration to evacuate much of the building and limit their protest to a designated, smaller area.
The fifty pro-Gaza students who occupied the Sciences-po Lyon amphitheater were evacuated by the police this Friday morning
The activists did not put up any resistance
➡️ pic.twitter.com/yfqoSDcl5B— Le Parisien (@le_Parisien) May 3, 2024
Speaking before the police intervention, a Sciences Po spokesman said the university was seeking a “negotiated solution” with students and that some of its campuses in Rennes, Le Havre and Poitiers were also affected by the protests. Sciences Po in Lyon, which is not related to Paris, was also blocked today by protesting students, while demonstrations were also organized at Lille’s School of Journalism, according to footage shown by French television channels.
On Thursday, the director of Sciences Po Paris, Jean Basser, rejected students’ demands that the school review its ties with Israeli universities, prompting them to continue their movement and at least one person to go on hunger strike, according to a student.
According to newsit, Samuel Lesoisier, the head of the Union of Jewish Students of France, said that the French student protests are more peaceful compared to those in the US, because in France there is a greater willingness to dialogue. “With the vast majority of students in French universities, including Sciences Po, it is still possible to have a dialogue. I even think there is an increased desire for discussion,” he said.
However, the French government warned, as the police operation began, that “it is and will remain fully determined” to maintain order. “Regarding the situation in (university) institutions, in some cases it was resolved through dialogue. For the others, requests were made by the presidents of the universities and the forces of order intervened immediately.
This determination is paying off: 23 sites were evacuated yesterday,” a government statement said. According to her, Prime Minister Gabriel Atal requested the intervention of the police at Science Po in Paris as soon as the request was made by the school’s management.
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