Paris: tension returns to Sciences Po, tends towards the Sorbonne

(ANSA) – PARIS, 02 MAY – Sit-in this afternoon in Paris in front of Sciences Po by students protesting for Gaza, one of whom announced he wanted to start a hunger strike. At the same time, a new evacuation of students who were blocking the Sorbonne. Actions on French campuses continue, after the round table – promised to Sciences Po students by the faculty management – ended in a “disappointing” way, according to the faculty’s “Palestine committee”. Other students will join the hunger strike today, until the request to “vote openly in the Institute Council to investigate partnerships with Israeli universities” is satisfied – says one of the members of the “committee”. The protest was suspended last week in exchange for an agreement from the management to organize an internal debate, defined – as a term used in the United States – “townhall”. The discussion was “tough” according to one of the faculty representatives, whose leaders took “rather firm positions on certain issues”. The authorities themselves had been criticized for having “given in” to the students by allowing them a debate on the topic of partnerships with Israeli institutes. If the situation in Sciences Po has become tense again, in front of the nearby Sorbonne, where the police had evacuated some demonstrators last Monday, around 300 students gathered and organized a camp of around twenty tents: “we are all children of Gaza”, “Palestine will live, Palestine will win” are some of the slogans chanted in the camp. (HANDLE).