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French Cops Prevent Students From Mounting Pro-Palestinian Demonstration at Elite Paris University
French police block pro-Palestinian students at the Sciences Po university in Paris from staging a demonstration. Photo: Reuters/Noemie Coissac
French police on Thursday prevented pro-Palestinian students at the Sciences Po university in Paris from staging a demonstration, deepening the conflict over antisemitism and free speech that has engulfed the elite institution.
Students arriving for the evening protest at the main campus on rue Saint-Guillaume were confronted by a cordon of police officers who blocked them from access. About 20 students gathered for a simultaneous protest at another campus building a few blocks away, chanting “Free Palestine” and “This isn’t a war, it’s a genocide” before being dispersed by police.
Concern over the impact of the conflict in Gaza on student life at the Sciences Po — formally known as the Paris Institute of Political Studies, a public research university — came into sharp focus earlier this week when a group of pro-Hamas students blockaded a lecture hall, allegedly preventing Jewish students from accessing the space.
The Union of Jewish Students in France (UEJF), whose members were confronted at the protest, said in a statement that “UEJF students are attacked as Jews and Zionists. We call for the immediate lifting of the blockade and exemplary sanctions against these students.” One Jewish student said she was regaled with cries of “she’s a Zionist, don’t let her in.”
The spectacle drew strong condemnation from leading French politicians, among them President Emmanuel Macron. Addressing the Council of Ministers on Wednesday, Macron denounced the protest as “unspeakable and completely intolerable.”
Other cabinet ministers echoed the president. “What happened has a name: Antisemitism,” Equality Minister Aurora Berge declared in a post on X/Twitter, while Higher Education Minister Sylvie Retailleau asserted that at French universities, “[I]t is intolerable and shocking to suffer the slightest discrimination, the slightest incitement to hatred.”
The condemnation continued throughout the week, with Prime Minister Gabriel Attal warning on Thursday that “an active minority wants to impose a dominant form of thought within this institution.” Separately, French Senate President Gérard Larcher told an interviewer from the France 2 broadcaster that “Sciences Po cannot become an Islamo-leftist bunker.”
Far left parliamentarians rose to the defense of the students — who gathered under the banner of Urgence Palestine, a pro-Hamas collective — echoing their claim that the allegations of antisemitism and discrimination had been fabricated.
“No, the incident was not trivial. Better: it did not take place!” Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of La France Insoumise (LFI), stated, while his colleague Aymeric Caron described the students as the “victims of a cabal.”
Following the Hamas pogrom in southern Israel on Oct. 7, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin attempted to impose an outright ban on pro-Palestinian demonstrations, citing fears over public disorder. That order was subsequently modified by the Council of State, which ruled that demonstrations could be banned by the police on a case-by-case basis.
In his remarks on Thursday, Attal pronounced France as “lucky at this stage to be relatively spared by a movement that we have seen develop in a certain number of countries, particularly in the Anglo-Saxon world. I do not want Sciences Po or any other university to become the entry point for the arrival of this thought.”
Speaking to the Turkish state broadcaster TRT at Thursday’s aborted protest, several students angrily disputed the UEJF’s account of Tuesday’s pro-Palestinian sit-in at the Sciences Po.
“Our comrades have been wrongly accused and defamed of having made antisemitic remarks, while this is absolutely not the case,” said one student, who gave her name as Lea. Another student, who gave his name as Hugo, insisted that the morning’s events had been orderly, with lectures on the topic of the Palestinians, with a protest mounted at lunchtime that ended after half-an-hour. Hugo argued that the reaction to the protest was the result of a “media frenzy,” adding that he had participated in order to obtain “a clear political reaction, including from Sciences Po, to demand a ceasefire in Gaza.”
In a statement on Thursday, the French Jewish communal organization Crif called for a parliamentary commission into antisemitism in higher education.
“The antisemitic atmosphere at some universities must be fought firmly or our democracy will suffocate,” Crif stated.
The post French Cops Prevent Students From Mounting Pro-Palestinian Demonstration at Elite Paris University first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.