French students demonstrated in solidarity with the Palestinians. The Sciences Po building had been occupied since Thursday evening. Similar actions are spreading around the world: students are now occupying the building of the University of Lausanne.
Friday, French police peacefully evacuated dozens of students of the building of the Institute of Political Studies of Paris, generally known as Sciences Po. They had gathered there to support the Palestiniansthus echoing similar camps and solidarity protests across the United States.
Students waved Palestinian flags and chanted slogans in support of Gaza residents, as Israel continues its offensive following the deadly Hamas attack on October 7, which triggered the war between Israel and the Islamist movement.
The Sciences Po building had been occupied since Thursday evening. The university administration had closed the main buildings and moved classes online.
Pro-Palestinian students demonstrate later Friday in front of the Pantheon monument, near the Sorbonne University, to demand an end to the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.
THURSDAY, similar protests took place at other universities across the country, particularly in Lille and Lyon.
The prime minister’s office said police had been asked to evacuate students from 23 sites on French campuses on Thursday and that “All were evacuated within a few hours.”
A police presence will be maintained near Sciences Po in order to prevent any further blockages, the ministry said in a press release.
Last week, tensions erupted near the elite university, who counts the president Emmanuel Macron and the prime minister Gabriel Attal among its many famous former students.
Pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli demonstrators clashed in the street in front of Sciences Po. Riot police intervened to separate the two groups.
Protests spread… University of Lausanne also blocked
Several dozen students spent the night in Géopolis, the building of the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, where they have been installed since yesterday.
According to the observers present, the situation is rather calm. The students claim that theThe University of Lausanne is an accomplice of Israel in this war through its scientific cooperation with the Jewish state.
This accusation could in principle apply to all Swiss universitiessay the experts.
The demonstrators’ concrete demands were presented at the university last night, during a meeting of around a hundred students.
The university management accepted student requests. However, even she could not currently estimate the exact extent of its scientific cooperation with Israeli universities.
