The police intervened again, Tuesday, May 7, twice, in front of the historic premises of Sciences Po Paris to disperse students mobilized in favor of the Palestinians, noted a journalist from Agence France-Presse (AFP ). At the start of the morning, trash cans, street furniture and self-service bicycles obstructed the entrance to the building at 27, rue Saint-Guillaume (7th arrondissement). About twenty students were present in the street; some wore health masks or wore keffiyehs, hiding part of their face.
The police quickly intervened “to unblock the two main entrances on rue Saint Guillaume, allowing the entry of students”, and made two arrests, the police headquarters said. The exams, which started at 9 a.m., were “launched normally,” declared Sciences Po management.
A second rally was organized at noon in “support of the arrested comrades” and, “above all, the Palestinian people”, according to the Palestine committee of Sciences Po. Around a hundred people demonstrated in front of the entrance – students of the school, around twenty employees from Sciences Po and around thirty students from Sorbonne University – before being evacuated by the police shortly after 2 p.m., noted AFP.
MP Louis Boyard (La France insoumise, LFI) was present in front of Sciences Po, as well as the head of the Republican (LR) European election list, François-Xavier Bellamy. The two elected officials had a virulent exchange. “The French people are not complicit with those who support Hamas today, with those who excuse the worst,” said the right-wing MEP to the “rebellious” MP.
Thirteen students continue their hunger strike
“I came here to be the voice of all the students who do not want to see Sciences Po reduced to these permanent blockages, to this permanent exploitation, to this pharmacy of La France insoumise that rue Saint-Guillaume has become,” said notably declared Mr. Bellamy. Before adding: “Students who block exams must be deprived of exams, foreign students who contribute to these troubles must be returned to their country.” “You go from pretext to pretext every time to never talk about the fact that there is a genocide in Gaza,” Louis Boyard retorted.
Classes have ended since Friday at Sciences Po, where students are taking exams this week. On Monday the police had already intervened, in the afternoon, to dislodge activists mobilized in support of the population of Gaza who had set up tents.
On the Sciences Po site in Reims, around thirty demonstrators were evacuated Tuesday morning by the police after trying to block access to students, according to the Marne prefecture. The exams had to be canceled on Tuesday at the Sciences Po site in Le Havre due to a blockage.
Students from the Institute of Political Studies have been on hunger strike since last weekend. There are currently thirteen of them, according to management, which claims to have informed them of “the possibility of treatment by the health center from Friday morning”.
