Gaza protests: French students demand an end to ties with Israeli universities

The provisional administrator of prestigious Sciences Po school in Paris, whose graduates include President Emmanuel Macron, has rejected student demands to create a working group that would investigate its ties with Israeli universities. At a town hall event on Thursday that followed student protests at the institution in Paris’s 7th arrondissement (district) last week, Jean Bassères said that the school needs to consider whether to "take positions on major political issues" but that a review of broader school policy was not on the agenda.

Students said they were "disappointed" by the event, according to FRANCE 24’s James André, reporting on the ground, with a spokesman for the Palestine Committee of Sciences Po saying that "none of [their] requests" had been met.

Among the Committee’s list of demands are ending links with institutions that pursue “Zionist ideologies”.

"End Israeli partnerships: we advocate for the cessation of any partnerships or collaborations with institutions or entities that uphold Zionist ideologies, which perpetuate systemic oppression and injustice against the Palestinian people," it says in an Instagram post.  

Speaking before the Sciences Po town hall, Philippe, a 22-year-old master’s student, expressed hope that the school would take action. "I hope the senior management does not continue to hold onto its hypocrisy,” he said in comments to AFP. “Are they going to be clear and send a strong message to the students, particularly on the subject of partnerships with [Israeli] universities?"

Some 100 students at Sciences Po Grenoble blocked a tramway and staged a sit-in on the platform, demanding the school "suspend its partnership" with Israel’s Ben Gurion University of the Negev. A public research university located in Beersheba, the school "grants special scholarships and financial aid to students in the army", the head of the Grenoble student union, Robinson Rossi, told Le Monde. Military service is compulsory in Israel for all men and women over the age of 18.  

Sciences Po Paris has exchange-programme partnerships with Ben Gurion University, the private Reichman University in Tel Aviv district and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. 

Sciences Po’s Palestine Committee is also demanding that Palestinian and pro-Palestinian students be protected from harassment on campus and that the university take “a principled stance by sending an official communication condemning the actions of Israelis that infringe upon the rights and wellbeing of Palestinians". 

‘The voice of peace’

The student union Syndicat Alternative Paris 1 at Sorbonne University – where a fresh protest is set to take place Friday afternoon – called for "the end of partnerships between Paris-based and Israeli universities" as well as "the end of repression of those bringing the voice of peace".   

The union also called for a ceasefire in Gaza in an Instagram post alongside a video of an enormous Palestinian flag that was unfurled and carried in the street in front of Sorbonne University during a protest on Monday.

Calls for an "immediate and permanent" ceasefire were also heard at a March 30 protest in Paris sponsored by the Union Etudiante, a nationwide grouping of local student organisations.

In a statement sent to FRANCE 24, the union called on France to “recognise the state of Palestine [and] stop arms and ammunition shipments to Israel” as well as to impose sanctions over the Gaza war.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)