Paris is affected by the campus fire: agitation at Macron’s alma school

A major French university’s campus building was inaccessible to students on Friday due to protests in Paris inspired by Gaza solidarity encampments on US campuses, which forced the administration to shift all lectures online. Two days before, police broke up another protest in the university’s amphitheater outside one of its Paris campuses in support of Palestine. This pro-Palestinian rally took place at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, also known as Sciences Po.

Numerous demonstrators commandeered a prominent university building on Friday, while dozens more used garbage cans, wooden platforms, and bicycles to obstruct the facility’s entrance. Disobedient students held signs that said “We are all Palestinians” and sang slogans as they gathered outside the building’s windows, protesting against officials who, according to the students, called the police on their classmates two days before. Over a hundred pro-Palestinian demonstrators took over the amphitheater on Wednesday night. Following conversations with management, the majority of students decided to go, although a small number stayed. Local sources state that later that night, authorities removed them.

All university facilities were shuttered, and the management issued a statement stating that it “strongly condemns these student actions that prevent the proper functioning of the institution.” According to a statement from the institution, authorities were meeting with a student delegation “to try to find a way out of this situation” and that there were around sixty protestors inside the locked facility.
PM Gabriel Attal and French President Emmanuel Macron are among the graduates of Sciences Po, which was established in 1871.