After invading the hall of an administrative building, the Grappin pole, at the beginning of October, the Unef-Tacle (Unef-Tendance Action Collective et Luttes Étudiantes, Editor’s note) decided since Wednesday October 27 to put a blow additional pressure on the management of the University of Nanterre. Requiring the enrollment of 61 students who failed Parcours Sup, around forty far-left activists took over the offices of the university presidency and continue to blackmail the management by occupying the premises day and night.
The latter, which put an end to all negotiations with the trade unionists, believes that it has affected the maximum number of students that its various courses can support and now relies on the rectorate to decide the fate of the last applicants. Since the last student mobilization, several files had been studied and dozens of places found for these “Sans-facs”. “At our level, we cannot do more”, the authorities of the establishment indicated in a press release dated October 25.
The Unef-Tacle does not want to believe the management short of solutions, and continues to organize mobilizations in full school holidays. On a campus empty of students, around forty people – students, CGT unionists, SNES-FSU or even an elected official from France Insoumise – had gathered again on Monday, November 1 to chant a few slogans and shoot videos of calls for continue the fight; spots quickly disseminated on social networks.
“At the moment, we are in a block position with regard to the presidency, explains Gorai Branbao, law student and Unef-Tacle activist. The 61 cases that we defend are not unabsorbable by the university, because not all of them want to go in the same course ”. According to him, a number of these “Sans-facs” would be “Refugees, with serious illnesses”. However, if the university is supposed to find a place for each French baccalaureate holder, refugees or beneficiaries of Ofpra protection may have their application refused by a faculty on the basis of its own criteria and in all legality.
“Studying is a right, not a privilege”, dogmatically retorts UNEF, which denounces the very principle of meritocratic selection at the entrance to public higher education. “Basically, the problem of“ sans-facs ”must be taken with more perspective than what the UNEF does, denounces Jacques Smith, United national delegate, student union classified on the right.
There is certainly a lack of places in universities, but it is mainly a problem of orientation. Because too many first-year students repeat or reorient themselves, which creates bottlenecks and overcrowding ”.
Unef-Tacle counts “Continue to occupy” the premises, until the case is won. If they are dislodged, other modes of action could be used to maintain the standoff. “What is certain is that the UNEF will block in December, as soon as the partial will arrive and whatever the pretext, vitupère Jacques Smith. Studying is a right, but it is also a freedom and when people block and degrade, they hinder the freedom to study ”.
CREDIT PHOTO : LA DEFENSE GAZETTE
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