Sorbonne occupier speaks to the Unrest in France blog

Here we are pleased to publish a first hand account of one of the first wave of students who occupied Sorbonne University.

Submitted by alibi on March 16, 2006

Hi. I'm a French student of The Sorbonne. I just wanted to write a few things, as i was pretty much moved by the fact that European youths are following what is happening in Paris.

I was in the Sorbonne when it was occupied. We were only 70 pacifists in the beginning. What happened in there? Well, debates, debates, debates. Some students would go around the Sorbonne until 6 or 7 am to make sure everything was going ok, that nobody was breaking anything. Things changed on friday when 200/ 300 people entered by the windows and joined us. From then it was much more hard to contain the anger: things were totally out of control in the streets infront of the Sorbonne since we had started the occupation.

People bought loads of food for us, so that we could go on with the occupation. But obviously, our nice Prime Minister and Minister of Interior (Sarkozy) decided to kick us out at 4 am the next morning. What a sweet attention.

First of all, the damage part is a lot of bullshit: the CRS arrived in the Sorbonne with their axes and tore the whole damn place to pieces. Broken windows, blaaah. That isn't worth 500 000 euros / 1 000 000 euros of insurance cost. A few chairs and tables where thrown in the street alright, but, i'm quite sceptical about the books affair.

About the french press, let's say there is quite a lot of manipulation since the beginning, or at least, part of the information is being used by them like they want. But hey; that's not new isn't it?

Anyways. Things will go on this week and probably next week too. Things got pretty much violent tonight again: in front of the Sorbonne, it felt like i wasn't in Paris anymore tonight. But in Bosnia. Ha! I ask for early elections now, like many other students.

Alright. Apart from that I heard that italian students have arrived in Paris today to join the movement.

I would have liked to go deeper into details concerning Politics, as this whole affair finds it roots since the last presidential elections. But i lack vocabulary. I just saw a message posted on indymedia from one of you guys, and thought it would be very interesting to read your point of vue. And it is. Thank you very much.

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