Pro-Palestinian students at Sciences Po, one of France’s most elite universities, occupied campus buildings overnight. Like-minded demonstrators set up camp at University College London. Tents with Palestinian flags have appeared across Australian university campuses this week.
Tensions at U.S. universities appear to be spreading to other countries, where student activists are challenging their own schools’ positions on the Gaza war and relations with Israel.
Demonstrators at several French universities have pressured administrators to more strongly condemn Israel’s military offensive in Gaza and review partnerships with Israeli universities and private donors.
Police entered Sciences Po on Friday morning to clear out a group of pro-Palestinian protesters who had occupied campus buildings overnight and refused to leave until their demands were met, according to a statement from Sciences Po. The intervention follows a town hall debate on the Gaza war held at the university on Thursday.
The university said students breached an agreement not to disrupt classes and exams and made the “difficult decision” to involve police after multiple failed attempts at dialogue. Several buildings were closed on Friday as a “security measure” and dozens of students were removed without violence, the statement said.
According to a video of the scene shared on Instagram, students sitting in the hall chanted: “We demand justice! We called the police!” as the police pulled them out.
“For us, this is an international movement,” Jack Espinose, a 22-year-old Sciences Po student who occupied the building overnight, said in an interview. He later joined hundreds of students from other universities in a protest in front of the Panthéon in Paris. “We are paying close attention to what is happening in the United States and we hope to do the same thing in France,” he said.
In the UK, small camps began to appear at universities in cities such as Bristol, Newcastle and Warwick. A coalition of students and staff at University College London set up tents on campus on Thursday to pressure the school to divest from companies complicit in the “genocide of Palestinians,” among other demands.
“We will not take action until the university meets our demands,” a spokesman named Anwar said in a social media post on Thursday. The university did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The union representing students at Trinity College Dublin said the university had fined it more than 214,000 euros ($230,000) over disruptive protests, student fee increases and the impact of the war in Gaza since September. Economic losses caused by other problems. The nonprofit university said in a statement that the protests had a “negative financial impact” by preventing visitors from reading the Book of Kells, a medieval religious manuscript preserved at the school.
Laszlo Molnarfi, president of Trinity’s student union, said in a telephone interview that the union was unable to pay the fine. He called it an act of intimidation by the university, adding that the protests would continue.
“We’re going to upgrade,” he said. “Colombian and American students are definitely an inspiration to all of us.”
In Australia, camps have been set up at major universities in cities such as Adelaide, Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney. Those protests became more tense as pro-Israel demonstrators gathered nearby.
Speaking of the camps, the Australian Jewish Students Union posted on social media on Thursday, “We are deeply concerned that denigration of Jewish students will escalate further.”
Australian university administrators say they support students’ right to protest, while warning them to abide by school policies.
“It would be naive to think that students won’t be tested by the same issues as wider society,” said Vicky Thomson, chief executive of the Group of Eight, a group representing Australia’s top universities. told the Sydney Morning Herald.
Aurelien Breeden Contributed reporting.