The evacuation of pro-Palestinian activists from the Parisian University of the Sorbonne on the evening of Tuesday, May 7, resulted in the placement in police custody of 86 people, the Paris prosecutor’s office announced on Wednesday. The public prosecutor must also make a new assessment of these current measures, which all concern adults. These police custody, which lasts twenty-four hours, can be extended by the same amount.
“The offenses mainly targeted are the following: willful damage, participation in a group with a view to preparing violence against people or destruction/damage of property, rebellion, violence against a person holding public authority or intrusion into the premises of a school educational establishment in a meeting with the aim of disturbing the tranquility or good order of the establishment,” added the prosecution.
The police intervened again on Tuesday at the Sorbonne University and in front of Sciences Po Paris to put an end to gatherings and blocking actions by pro-Palestinian activists, echoing repeated messages of firmness from the government.
Less than twenty-four hours after the Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, recalled that there would “never be a right to blockade” in French universities, the police entered the Sorbonne on Tuesday evening to evacuate demonstrators who had occupied an amphitheater for around two hours, in “solidarity” with Gaza, noted a journalist from Agence France-Presse.
The students, who numbered around a hundred inside, according to consistent sources, were taken out slowly into the street, sometimes carried at arm’s length by agents. The Police Prefecture reported 88 arrests during this intervention which ended shortly before midnight, according to the rectorate and a police source.
