France: The UNEF condemns police violence at Paris-Nanterre University

CW Police violence

By Angela Lopez
Originally published by Union Nationale des Étudiants de France
(National Union of Students of France - UNEF)
10 April 2018

For several weeks, students and staff at Paris Nanterre University have been mobilized against the so-called Student Orientation and Success Act. In this direction, yesterday morning, the students made the choice as a mode of action to block a number of campus buildings. Following this came a general meeting where the students were able to debate the direction to be given to the movement and the next steps to be taken in protests against the reform of the Students Plan. In response to this, an administrative closure of all the buildings was ordered by the president of the university and denied to allow students to access their course buildings.

The president of Paris-Nanterre University decides to use force against students.

Faced with the mobilization of the students, the president of the University Paris Nanterre made the decision to respond with force and to send onto the campus companies of the CRS (Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité - Republican Security Companies). Once on site, the only purpose of the CRS was to dislodge by force the students who were in the social and human sciences buildings. These are students who have been gassed, hit and worse. Many of them have been wounded, one of them seriously. Added to this is the arrest of seven students, even though they did not put up any resistance, among whom is Victor Mendez, a UNEF activist.

It is unacceptable that the response of a university to students' claims to be able to mobilize is a response of force, the police have no place in our universities!

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Angela Lopez is president of l'UNEF in France's Department 31