It is a phenomenon that is exported. In the United States, several dozen student demonstrators set up on the campus of Columbia University to denounce the Israeli response to Gaza after the Hamas attack on October 7. The latter are also demanding a ceasefire, while the number of Palestinian victims continues to increase, according to reports communicated by the terrorist organization at the head of the Gaza Strip.
Sciences Po, “a symbol of renunciation”
The movement has spread to other universities across the country and is now crossing the Atlantic. Thus, the University of Sciences Po Paris was blocked this week by dozens of pro-Palestinian students. A mobilization strongly criticized by the government but widely supported by La France insoumise. Several elected officials including Rima Hassan, LFI candidate in the European elections and pro-Palestinian activist, made the trip to support the students. The latter also called for the movement to continue in other Sciences Po structures in the provinces.
Finally, an agreement was reached between the management of the prestigious university and the demonstrators. The management has thus undertaken to suspend the disciplinary procedures launched against the demonstrators, and to organize an internal debate, in exchange for a return to calm until the end of the school year. Questioned this Sunday morning on the set of the Grand Rendez-vous, François-Xavier Bellamy was particularly critical. “Sciences Po has become the symbol of renunciation, of resignation,” he regrets.
Bellamy calls for no longer supporting the drift
“There are several things in this affair. There is obviously the mobilization of students which, for several weeks, has been accompanied by practices and words that are revolting,” he underlines, alluding to a Jewish student who was unable to enter an amphitheater occupied by pro-Palestinian students. “But perhaps even more serious, in a certain way, it is the resignation of the management of Sciences-Po and it is the government which congratulates this management because this agreement amounts to saying that the students who are blocking, who threaten, who exercise violence on all those who do not block, who would simply like to study; we agree with them”, annoys the MEP.
“I think that if today this drift were to continue, rather than supporting the management, because that is what the government is doing by supporting the administrator of Sciences Po who implemented this agreement of shame, I believe that the government should, on the contrary, stop public funding for Sciences Po. Because we cannot finance a school which has become the place of mixed leftism and Islamism, which legitimizes anti-Semitic remarks and acts of violence, including against journalists,” he concludes.