(Paris) Pro-Palestinian students in Europe continued to mobilize on Tuesday by occupying campuses and attempting to block university premises, particularly in Paris, Berlin, Cologne and Switzerland.
In the French capital, the police intervened again on Tuesday, twice, in front of the historic premises of the prestigious Sciences Po Paris school to disperse pro-Palestinian gatherings, AFP journalists noted.
At the start of the morning, trash cans and street furniture obstructed the entrance to the building located in 7e upscale district of Paris. Around twenty students were present.
A first-year student, who refused to be identified, justified the blockage by the same demands that have agitated the campuses of Sciences Po Paris for several weeks, in particular an investigation into partnerships with Israeli universities.
Sciences Po students have also started a hunger strike since last weekend. There are currently thirteen of them, according to management.
Students also announced that they would occupy an amphitheater at the Sorbonne University in Paris, “in solidarity” with Gaza and “against the repression of pro-Palestinian student movements”.
Nearly 80 students took possession of an amphitheater at the end of the afternoon, “with tents”, indicated Lorélia Fréjo, student present in front of the Parisian university with around 200 demonstrators, noted an AFP journalist .
In Amsterdam, police dispersed a student encampment on a campus overnight from Monday to Tuesday, arresting 125 demonstrators who called for the university to sever all ties with Israel.
According to footage from public broadcaster NOS, police officers charged demonstrators with batons and destroyed tents around 4 a.m. (10 p.m. Eastern Time) after they refused to leave the campus.
“The demonstration took on a violent character (…) large stones were removed from the ground,” the police said in a press release.
In Germany, student protests are currently on a smaller scale, concentrated mainly in Berlin and Cologne (west).
Tuesday morning, in the German capital, between 60 and 80 people set up a protest camp on the site of the Free University of Berlin, one of the most prestigious in the country, before being dislodged by the police.
“Free Palestine”
Tents, Palestinian flags and banners reading “the strike is the resistance” were placed on the campus lawns.
“This form of protest is not focused on dialogue,” university president Günter Ziegler said in a statement. He described this occupation of the premises which caused “material damage” as “unacceptable”.
In Switzerland, the pro-Palestinian student movement has grown, with the occupation of premises in Lausanne, but also Zurich and Geneva.
On Tuesday, the movement which began last week spread to the prestigious École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). A group of pro-Palestinian students announced that they had decided to “peacefully occupy” the hall of the establishment. There are several dozen of them, a university spokesperson told AFP.
Students demand “an academic boycott” of Israeli institutions. They also plead for a ceasefire, the restoration of funding for UNRWA and the end of “occupation and apartheid”, they wrote in a press release on Monday.
The sister school in Zurich also saw a few dozen students sitting in the entrance hall of the ETH Zurich shortly before midday on Tuesday.
The demonstrators notably shouted “Free Palestine” and placed a poster on the ground reading “no Tech for Genocide”, before being evacuated by the police, according to the Keystone-ATS news agency.
In Geneva, the Palestine-University of Geneva Student Coordination (CEP-UnigGe) took over a hall of the university with tables, chairs and sofas around midday, reports the agency.
This movement is inspired by the protests which have agitated around forty campuses in the United States since mid-April. In France, the student mobilization to denounce the situation in Gaza mainly concerns Sciences Po, its regional campuses and other political studies institutes.
reference: www.lapresse.ca