The President of France, Emmanuel Macron, condemns “with the utmost firmness” the blockades of certain university centers by pro-Palestinian students who demand measures against Israel for its attacks on Gaza.
In an interview with the newspapers La Tribune Dimanche and La Provence, Macron is “favorable” to the evacuation of these blockades by law enforcement when requested by the management of the centers.
This Friday the evacuation of the Sciences Po centers in Paris and Lyon took place, which groups of pro-Palestinian students had blocked, preventing the normal development of activities.
The head of state said he understood that the situation in Gaza caused commotion, and that in this regard, his country called for “an immediate ceasefire,” but at the same time he insisted that “preventing debate has never helped the resolution of a conflict.
In his opinion, it is “legitimate and even healthy and reassuring” that young people feel concerned by international news and want to debate, but not that they try to impose certain policies on universities “by force and blockade.”
“Preventing other students from accessing an amphitheater with the pretext that they are Jews is not republican,” he said, alluding to one of the reproaches that has been leveled against some of the activists who have mobilized at Sciences Po or the Sorbonne.
For Macron, the students who have resorted to blockades are “politicized” and follow the line of formations such as La France Insoumise of the radical left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
“It is simply counterproductive and unacceptable that they prevent debate in the name of their struggles,” he complained.
The mobilizations in French universities in recent days, until now very minority in scope, have come to reproduce a movement that had begun in the United States with a much greater following.
As in the United States, these protests demand a change in their respective governments’ positions in support of Israel. EFE
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