Firmness is the government’s watchword in the face of the Pro-Palestinian student mobilization. “ [Celle-ci] pay, we assure Matignon. Twenty-three disturbed sites were evacuated, notably with the requisition of the police, who intervened without delay. » The entourage of the Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, is pleased to see that“no base camp or fixation abscess has been permanently established anywhere in France”, “contrary to what we have observed abroad, particularly across the Atlantic”.
Friday morning, at Sciences Po Paris, the provisional administrator, Jean Bassères, called on the police for the second time in order to evacuate several dozen students who had been protesting since the day before against the refusal of the management of break all partnership with Israel. This refusal relaunched the occupation of the premises, six students having decided to embark on a hunger strike.
In such a tense context, what space is left for dialogue on campus? The question was asked a little further away, on Friday, Place de la Sorbonne, by the Union of Jewish Students of France (UEJF). To open the discussion, dozens of cards were scattered across two “dialogue tables”.
On the program: concepts such as “Zionism” and “colony”, founding texts such as the Balfour Declaration – by which the British government promised, in 1917, to promote the creation of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine − or even maps of Israel and the Palestinian territories.
“I believe in debateexplains Samuel Lejoyeux, president of the UEJF. The most radical do not play the game of debate. It’s a problem when their posts indicate that Jewish students are “complicit in genocide” [à Gaza] just because they are Zionists. »
Divergences over the post-war period
For Daphné Hubelé, arts student, “dialogue is more than necessary when we see in the mobilizations calls for a “third intifada” [« soulèvement », en arabe] and demonstrators who display “red hands”. “It is possible that there was ignorance [au sujet de ce symbole du massacre de deux soldats israéliens, le 12 octobre 2000], but now that things are said, they should denounce this symbol”insists Samuel Lejoyeux.
Keffiyeh around her neck, Youmna Bahout, engineering student, greets the “courageous and beautiful step” of the UEJF. But “the content of the dialogue shows that there are ideas that remain very partial, with a vision of history that begins on October 7 [2023, jour des attaques du Hamas contre Israël] uniquely “believes the young woman, who pleaded “for the demilitarization of new Israeli generations”.
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