French Students Rally for Termination of Academic Ties with Israeli Regime
The assembly took place in a lecture hall at the University of Paris 8, where attendees voiced pro-Palestinian sentiments, including chants of “Long live Palestine.”
The hall was adorned with Palestinian flags and placards, some of which read “Free Palestine” and “Stop the genocide.” These served as a call to action for the termination of partnerships between French and Israeli academic institutions.
The students deliberated on the potential establishment of a unified day of action across all French universities, with a consensus to extend the protests beyond university campuses, Anadolu Agency reported.
One protester, identified as Lisa, described the French police’s approach to managing university campuses as an exertion of “unprecedented pressure.”
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Aicha, a representative of the Palestine committee at Paris-Sorbonne University (Paris IV), highlighted the collaboration between French and Israeli universities. She called for French universities to cease their support for the “genocide” in Gaza through their affiliations with the occupation regime.
The wave of pro-Palestinian student protests, which originated at Columbia University in New York on April 17, has since spread to other Western nations, including the UK and France. The protesters in are calling for an immediate halt to the support for the Israeli regime and an end to the conflict in Gaza.
A primary demand of the protesters is for their institutions to divest from Israeli entities or companies implicated in the Gaza war and wider abuses against Palestinians.
According to a report released by CNN on Sunday, the number of arrests since April 18 has exceeded 2,200, while a similar report by Fox News puts the total number of arrests at over 2,400.
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The protesters share common goals, including urging their institutions to divest from entities associated with human rights abuses by the Israeli government against Palestinians and calling for an end to the Gaza war, which has been characterized as a genocide by numerous rights groups, UN experts, and nations.
Since the onset of Israeli aggression on Gaza on October 7, over 34,700 Palestinians, predominantly women and children, have lost their lives, and more than 77,500 have been injured amidst widespread destruction and severe shortages of essential supplies.
Source: Agencies
