Pro-Palestine protests continue at Paris Institute of Political Studies
There are a few dozen students outside the university and a few dozen inside as well. They’ve been staging a sit-in for nearly 24 hours. We know that university authorities have asked them to leave, but so far they haven’t.
There’s a pretty light police presence, and for now, the protesters are being left alone. They’ve got a number of banners saying “No to war” and saying this is a genocide.
They’re here protesting not only for the Palestinian people and asking for an end to the war but also saying they want universities in France, including Sciences Po, which is one of the most prestigious in France, to cut ties with Israeli universities.
They’re also calling on the French government to do more to protect the Palestinian people and protect what they say has been an erosion of freedom of speech. There were protests here at the university before. The police moved in and moved away those protesters.
This isn’t, at this stage, the sort of movement we’re seeing in the US. There have been two or three of these protests or sit-ins at this particular university, but we haven’t seen them in other universities throughout France. Certainly, some of the students here are hoping we might see a wave of protests across French universities.
‘We feel silenced’, protesters at France’s Sciences Po say
“One thing to know is our school is a leading school when it comes to political sciences, when it comes to international relations and international law, so it is important for us, regarding what is happening right now in Palestine, to speak up,” Sophie, a spokesperson for the students told Al Jazeera.
She added that they are calling for a town hall, for Sciences Po to cut ties with Israeli universities and for all investigations ino pro-Palestinian students to be cancelled.
“We feel silenced because we are not heard by the administration. We have been demanding what I’m telling you since October now. Plus we have been under several threats every time we were organising events,” she said.
“We’ve now reached another step with the police coming into our campus during Wednesday’s occupation to take us out.”
‘Extremely hard’ to talk about Palestine in France, says protester
We have spoken to more pro-Palestine demonstrators at Sciences Po in Paris, where students have been blocking the entrance to the university.
Hicham said he was demonstrating to force the administration of the education institution in the French capital to “break their complete silence”. “For three days we’ve been occupying our school. We went to one building, they [the university] called the cops on us, we had to get out, so we went to the main historical building,” Hicham told Al Jazeera.
“My comrades are still inside and there’s a big blockade of the school right now. We have a few demands but one of them is to start investigating all of the ties they [Sciences Po] have with the state of Israel, which [are] academic and financial.”
He added that it has become “extremely hard” to talk about Palestine in France due to the way police respond. “But I think the more repression happens, the more people are mobilising. Meaning that we were maybe 300 people before, [but] now we’re 600,” he said.
Demonstrators at Sciences Po in Paris
Pro-Palestine activists at Warwick University set up encampment
Pro-Palestinian activists at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom have announced that they have taken over the piazza and formed an encampment.
“As the University of Warwick continues to reject our demands to cut ties with genocide, we rise up in unison with fellow students all over the world, from Columbia, NYC, to Paris, to Sydney. We say no business as usual as long as Warwick sponsors colonial genocide,” the group Warwick Stands for Palestine wrote on X.
In recent weeks, student activists worldwide have set up camps on campuses and called for an end to the war on Gaza and for their institutions to cut ties with Israeli universities.
PIAZZA OCCUPIED. As the @uniofwarwick continues to reject our demands to cut ties with genocide, we rise up in unison with fellow students all over the world, from Columbia, NYC, to Paris, to Sydney. We say no business as usual as long as Warwick sponsors colonial genocide! pic.twitter.com/mySp24txV8
— Warwick Stands With Palestine (@wwkstandspal) April 26, 2024
Tunisian student union calls for solidarity rallies
The Tunisian General Union of Students (UGET) has praised the pro-Palestine protest movement sweeping US universities and urged its own students to take similar actions.
In a statement on Facebook, UGET said it expressed “gratitude and admiration for the student movements at American universities, drawing inspiration from their remarkable history of war rejection, as witnessed during the Vietnam War”.
UGET called on Tunisian university students to likewise organise protests, vigils, and seminars “in support of the Palestinian liberation cause”, and for the establishment of a “national day of solidarity with Palestine in all universities”.
