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The President of France, Emmanuel Macron, condemned “with the greatest firmness” the blockades of certain university centers by pro-Palestinian students who demand measures against Israel for its attacks on Gaza.
In a newspaper interview La Tribune Sunday and La Provence, Macron is “favorable” to the evacuation by law enforcement forces of these blockades when requested by the management of the centers.
This Friday the evacuation of the centers of Sciences Po in Paris and Lyonwhich some groups of pro-Palestinian students had blocked, preventing the normal development of activities.
The head of state said he understood that the situation in Gaza caused commotion, and that in this regard, his country called on “an immediate ceasefire”but at the same time he insisted that “Preventing debate has never helped resolve a conflict”.
In your opinion it is “legitimate and even healthy and reassuring” that young people feel concerned by international current events and that they want to debate, but not that they try to impose certain policies on universities “by force and blockade”.
“Preventing other students from accessing an amphitheater under the pretext that they are Jewish is not republican”he pointed out in reference to one of the reproaches that has been leveled against some of the activists who have mobilized at Sciences Po or the Sorbonne.
For Macron, the students who have resorted to blockades are “politicized” and they follow the line of formations such as La Francia Insumisa by the leader of the radical left Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
“It is simply counterproductive and unacceptable that they prevent debate in the name of their struggles”She complained.
The mobilizations in French universities in recent days, until now of a very minority scopehave come to reproduce a movement that had begun in the United States with a much greater following.
As in the United States, these protests demand a change in position of their respective Governments in support of Israel.
