French university protests threaten to spread after violence
Protests over Emmanuel Macron’s
university reforms threaten to spread to faculties across France
after outrage following the violent breakup of a student sit-in in Montpellier by masked men with bats and sticks. Around 50 students had been staging a lecture hall sit-in at the southern French university on Thursday to protest against the French president’s tightening of university entrance requirements when a group of men in black, many of them wearing balaclavas and masks, began beating the protesters and forcing them out. Video footage showed students screaming as masked men hit students with bits of wood. “They began hitting people,” said one student, who claimed the men also had stunguns.
after outrage following the violent breakup of a student sit-in in Montpellier by masked men with bats and sticks. Around 50 students had been staging a lecture hall sit-in at the southern French university on Thursday to protest against the French president’s tightening of university entrance requirements when a group of men in black, many of them wearing balaclavas and masks, began beating the protesters and forcing them out. Video footage showed students screaming as masked men hit students with bits of wood. “They began hitting people,” said one student, who claimed the men also had stunguns.
Several students
lodged complaints to police. A legal investigation into “armed group violence”
has been opened by the local prosecutor to determine the identities of the men.
The French universities minister has demanded an inquiry and Montpellier
University has opened its own investigation.
Students in Lille
called for a nationwide demonstration on Wednesday against Macron’s university
reforms and what they called the heavy-handed treatment of student
demonstrators.
The Montpellier law
and political sciences faculty remained closed on Monday, as student both for
and against sit-in protests demonstrated outside. The law faculty
dean, Philippe Pétel, at first told French media that he was in support of the
lecture hall being evacuated. But he swiftly resigned last week. Philippe Augé, the
Montpellier university head, told local radio the masked assault was
“indescribable”, “shocking” and “showed an extreme violence.” He said he wanted
to secure and reopen the university as soon as possible.
Macron’s government
has argued changes to university entrance procedure are essential. Every
student in France who
passes the baccalaureate high-school exam has the right to go to
university in their home area, which has led to popular subjects such as law
and psychology being heavily oversubscribed and prompted the introduction of an
unpopular lottery system where demand is highest. Under Macron’s
plans, the lottery system would be wound down and the hardest-pressed
universities would be allowed to select students on merit.
The government
argued that a lack of specialisation at high school and the inability to select
students had lead to a high university dropout rate. Around 60% of students in
France do not finish their first year of university. The new law stops
short of blanket selection, but some students argue it threatens France’s
tradition of university education for all. Tension spilled on
to the streets of Montpellier at the weekend as around 30 far-right
demonstrators from the Ligue de Midi wearing red, white and blue masks engaged
in a standoff with around 200 anti-fascist protesters. The anti-facist
demonstrators included students who said far-right extremists were among the
masked men who broke up the sit-in. Police struggled to keep the two groups
apart amid stone-throwing and shouting.
