Paris university students occupy building in pro-Palestinian protest

Students at prestigious Paris university occupy campus building in pro-Palestinian protest

Students at a Paris university piled trash bins and bicycles on a street to block access to a campus building.

By Jeffrey Schaffer and. Barbara Surk

April 26, 2024 1:23 PM PT

PARIS — Students in Paris inspired by Gaza solidarity encampments at campuses in the United States blocked access to a campus building at a prestigious French university, prompting administrators to move all classes online.

The pro-Palestinian protest kicked created a day of drama at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, known as Sciences Po, which counts President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Gabriel Attal among its many famous alumni.

Protesters on Friday first occupied a central campus building and blocked its entrance with trash cans, wooden platforms and a bicycle. They also gathered at the building’s windows, chanting pro-Palestinian slogans, and hung out Palestinian flags and placards reading, “We are all Palestinians.”

Later, pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli demonstrators faced each other in a tense standoff in the street outside the school. Riot police stepped in to separate the opposing groups.

As evening fell, a dwindling group of pro-Palestinian protesters refused to budge, ignoring police orders to evacuate the street. Others left peacefully, escorted away from the area by police.

The Israel-Hamas war is sharply divisive in France, which has the largest populations of Muslims and Jews in western Europe.

More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed during the war, according to local health officials, who say about two-thirds of the dead are women and children. The health officials don’t differentiate among combatants and civilians in their counts.

Israel declared war on Hamas and unleashed a pulverizing air and ground offensive in Gaza in response to the militants’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel. The militants killed about 1,200 people in Israel and took another 250 hostage.

France initially sought to ban pro-Palestinian demonstrations after Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel.

Among protesters’ demands was that Sciences Po sever ties with Israeli schools.

On Wednesday evening, more than 100 pro-Palestinian protesters had occupied a Sciences Po amphitheater. Most agreed to leave after discussions with management, but a small group of students remained. They were removed by police later that night, according to French media reports.

The university administration closed all university buildings and moved classes online Friday. It said in a statement it “strongly condemns these student actions which prevent the proper functioning of the institution and penalize Sciences Po students, teachers and employees.”

The statement said about 60 protesters were inside the occupied building and that administrators were meeting with a student delegation “to try to find a way out of this situation through dialogue.”

Louise, a protester who spoke on condition that only her first name be used because she said she feared repercussions, said the students’ actions were inspired by similar demonstrations at New York’s Columbia University and other U.S. campuses.

“But our solidarity remains first and foremost with the Palestinian people,” she said.

In the U.S., students protesting the war have been digging in at Columbia in one of a number of demonstrations roiling campuses from California to Connecticut.

Hundreds of students and even some professors have been arrested across the nation, sometimes amid struggles with police.

Associated Press reporter Schaffer reported from Paris and Surk from Nice, France. AP correspondent John Leicester contributed to this report.