From Sciences Po to Columbia, a week of pro-Palestinian mobilizations on university campuses around the world

The wave of student support for Palestine is now global. Since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas on October 7, pro-Palestinian mobilizations have initially been confined to the United States. Sciences Po Paris ended up joining the movement at the end of April, with resulting blockages and evacuations. Other Institutes of Political Studies followed in France, as did the Sorbonne University.

Elsewhere in the world, from the United Kingdom to Canada, via Mexico, the tents of pro-Palestinian activists have been set up on campus lawns. All these students are protesting against the war in the Gaza Strip and demanding an end to the partnerships of their universities with those located in Israel. Franceinfo takes stock of last week’s mobilizations, country by country.

In France, blockages at Sciences Po and the Sorbonne

At Sciences Po Paris, the epicenter of the pro-Palestinian movement in France, the police evacuated activists on Friday, putting an end to the occupation of the establishment. One week after an initial mobilization and evacuation of premises, “91 people” were dislodged “without incident”according to the Paris police headquarters at the request of the establishment. “The firmness is and will remain total”said Matignon.

Several members of the Palestine Committee of Sciences Po Paris announced Thursday that they were starting a “hunger-strike” in “solidarity with the Palestinian victims”. But Jean Bassères, the provisional administrator of the establishment, reiterated that there was no question, as these students are demanding, of“investigate” Sciences Po’s relations with Israeli universities.

Elsewhere in France, several Sciences Po campuses, such as Le Havre, Dijon, Reims or Poitiers, were subject to disruptions, blockages or partial occupations. Some have been lifted.

In Lyon, the police intervened on Friday to calmly evacuate pro-Palestinian demonstrators from the Institute of Political Studies. To avoid any new occupation, the establishment will be administratively closed until May 12, management announced. In Saint-Etienne, the police also evacuated around fifteen students on Friday who were blocking access to a university site. In the Alpes-Maritimes, Sciences Po Menton reopened normally on Friday, after several days of closure. The Lille School of Journalism was also blocked this week.

Monday, French student mobilization had also won a prestigious Parisian university: the Sorbonne. Lhe police entered the historic premises of the university to evacuate pro-Palestinian activists, who had set up tents inside the buildings. A rally in support of the Palestinian cause at the call of student unions also brought together between 250 and 300 people on Friday at Place du Panthéon.

“Our mobilization continues next week in colleges with blockages already planned,” warned the management of the Student Union union. High school students are now called to join the movement. “We will have blockades everywhere in France” from Monday, warned Gwenn Thomas-Alves, spokesperson for the High School Union, who calls for a “convergence between high school students and students”. Dyears an interview at Provence And La Tribune Sunday, Emmanuel Macron condemned “with the greatest firmness” these blockages which “prevent debate”.

In the United States, the universities of Columbia and UCLA mobilized

Since April 17, a wave of mobilization in support of Gazans has swept across American campuses. Around forty universities are involved, from the east coast to the west coast. The police have intervened several times in recent days to dislodge the protesters. Almost 2 000 people were arrested, according to a report established by several American media.

At the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), the protesters were arrested one by one on Thursday, handcuffed and then taken outside, after a tense face-to-face with the police. The previous night, clashes had broken out on this campus when counter-protesters, many of them masked, attacked the pro-Palestinian encampment and tried to break down a barricade.

Some 300 people were also arrested on Wednesday in New York, on university sites, according to the authorities. During the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, the police had already chased away pro-Palestinian demonstrators, barricaded in the prestigious Columbia University, the epicenter of student mobilization in the United States.

Unlike other institutions, Brown University agreed with the demonstrators to dismantle their encampment in exchange for a vote on a possible “divestment” of “companies enabling and profiting from the genocide in Gaza.”

After two weeks of silence, and six months before the presidential election, Democratic President Joe Biden spoke on Thursday to affirm that “order must prevail.” “We are not an authoritarian country that silences people”he nevertheless added.

The UK, camps at Trinity College or Manchester

The movement in support of the Palestinians has also spread to British universities, on campuses in Sheffield, Bristol and Newcastle. In Manchester, among the different faculties, dozens of red, blue and green tents were pitched on a lawn on Friday.

In Ireland, students at Trinity College University in Dublin set up a camp on campus on Friday, blocking the entrance to a building. Visitor access was also prohibited on Saturday by the administration. In this country, the government itself has been very critical of Benjamin Netanyahu’s attitude since the start of the conflict. The new Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris said he was ready in mid-April to recognize a Palestinian state.

Demonstrations also in Mexico, Canada, Australia, Switzerland and Lebanon

In Mexico, dozens of pro-Palestinian students from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the largest in the country, set up camp on Thursday in Mexico City to protest the Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip. Further north, in Canada, tents were pitched this week on the lawns of several campuses in Toronto and Ottawa, reports Radio Canada.

In Australia, hundreds of pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli demonstrators came face to face on Friday on the campus of the University of Sydney. Despite some tense exchanges, the two gatherings remained peaceful and the police did not intervene. In Switzerland, at the University of Lausanne, around fifty students attended installed Thursday evening in the lobby of a building. After negotiations with the rectorate, the group was authorized to occupy the premises until Monday, according to Swiss media RTS.

The movement in support of Palestine is also felt in faculties in the Middle East. In Lebanon, for example,Hundreds of students from different universities demonstrated on Tuesday. Some even held up banners displaying messages of solidarity with southern Lebanon, territory where the Islamist movement Hezbollah, which supports Hamas, has exchanged fire with the Israeli army since October 7.