Since Wednesday, the buildings of the University Paris-I-Panthéon-Sorbonne were occupied by a hundred or so students revolted against the results of the presidential election.
Students who occupied the Sorbonne to make their voices heard in the intervening rounds of the presidential election left the university buildings on Thursday evening after a day of rallies punctuated by incidents. “All the students of the occupation have decided to leave“, told AFP Thursday evening Baptiste, a second-year philosophy student at the Sorbonne and Unef activist, who participated in the movement inside the building.
Some of the young people, however, remained in the building, according to students. A video was circulating on social media claiming that 40 students were still at the university, being held back by the police. A police source confirmed to AFP that there were still students inside, without specifying their number or the reason for their presence.
Evacuation “Follows several news that have been transmitted to us”, and especially “the fact that the next outings we would make would result in police custody”, “that there would be a gendarmerie intervention from 10 p.m.”and that'”we no longer had the presidency as an interlocutor” from the university, which “contributed to generate a lot of fears”, he explained.
Outside, the police used tear gas in the evening to disperse demonstrators who had gathered near the Pantheon for the reception and regularization of refugee students, not far from the Sorbonne, according to a journalist from AFP on the spot.