(Paris) Protests by pro-Palestinian students continue in Europe, with the occupation of campuses and the blocking of university premises, notably in Paris, Berlin, Cologne and Switzerland, some of which were evacuated by the police.
In the French capital, the police intervened again on Tuesday in front of the historic premises of the prestigious Sciences Po Paris school to disperse pro-Palestinian gatherings, AFP journalists noted.
In the evening, she dislodged students who were occupying an amphitheater at the Sorbonne University in Paris, “in solidarity” with Gaza and “against the repression of pro-Palestinian student movements”. There were around a hundred of them, according to consistent sources, and the police headquarters reported 88 arrests.
With this new action, the activists, who chanted “Rafah, Rafah, we are with you”, intended to “put pressure” on the governments while the Israeli army deployed tanks on Tuesday in Rafah and took control of the crossing border with Egypt, in the south of the Gaza Strip, cutting off access for humanitarian aid.
At Sciences Po, a first-year student, who refused to be identified, justified the blockade by the same demands that have agitated campuses for several weeks due to the Israeli military offensive in Gaza in response to the bloody attack of Hamas on October 7 in Israel, including an investigation into partnerships with Israeli universities.
Echoing the mobilization on American campuses, several actions have taken place in recent weeks in Europe.
In Amsterdam, police dispersed a student encampment on a campus overnight from Monday to Tuesday, arresting 125 demonstrators who called for the university to sever all ties with Israel.
According to footage from public broadcaster NOS, police officers charged demonstrators with batons and destroyed tents around 4 a.m. (10 p.m. Eastern Time) after they refused to leave the campus.
“The demonstration took on a violent character […] large stones were removed from the ground,” police said in a statement.
In Germany, student protests are currently on a smaller scale, concentrated mainly in Berlin and Cologne (west).
Tuesday morning, in the German capital, between 60 and 80 people set up a protest camp on the site of the Free University of Berlin, one of the most prestigious in the country, before being dislodged by the police.
“Free Palestine”
Tents, Palestinian flags and banners reading “the strike is the resistance” were placed on the campus lawns.
The president of the university, Günter Ziegler, described this occupation of the premises as “unacceptable”, deploring “material damage”.
In Austria, dozens of people set up tents in front of the Vienna University campus on Tuesday, with banners reading “the resistance is international” or “Israel kills, the EU joins”.
In Switzerland, the pro-Palestinian student movement has grown, with the occupation of premises in Lausanne but also Zurich and Geneva.
On Tuesday, the movement which began last week spread to the prestigious École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). A group of pro-Palestinian students announced that they had decided to “peacefully occupy” the hall of the establishment. There are several dozen of them, a university spokesperson told AFP.
Students demand “an academic boycott” of Israeli institutions. They also plead for a ceasefire, the restoration of funding for UNRWA and the end of “occupation and apartheid”, they wrote in a press release on Monday.
The sister school in Zurich also saw a few dozen students sitting in the entrance hall of the ETH Zurich shortly before midday on Tuesday.
The demonstrators notably shouted “Free Palestine” and placed a poster on the ground reading “no Tech for Genocide”, before being evacuated by the police, according to the Keystone-ATS news agency.
In Geneva, the Palestine-University of Geneva Student Coordination (CEP-UnigGe) took over a university hall with tables, chairs and sofas around midday, the agency reports.