Unregistered Students gassed by campus Security

Submitted by jef costello on October 31, 2006

Is this what the President calls dialogue?
(translation of a leaflet handed out by students at the Univerity of Nanterre this morning)

On Monday morning, campus security sprayed dozens of students trying to enter building B with pepper sprayed. Their crime? They were simply looking to agree a meeting with the administration to register all the remaining unregistered students.

Two concrete examples of selective entry*
Student A: An Austrian of Tunisian origin, with a Tunisian baccalaureate and with the same right as any French student to enrol at university. All nine of the PArisian universities he tried to register with refused his application. Campus security at Paris II wouldn't even allow him to enter the building!
Student B: A Senegalese student submitted his 'preliminary application for admission' eight months before the beginning of term, as french law requires first and second-year students from outside the EU to do. Yet he was turned down on the grounds that his application was not "submitted sufficiently in advance".

A and B are not alone: the administration has refused to register several dozen students under fallacious and often illegal pretexts, such as 'Course capacity reached' 'previous studies incompatible with planned course of study' or even 'cannot prove competence in the french language' for Francphone students! The main victims of this new selection policy are foreign students from the Southern Hemisphere, notably the former French colonies. Volontary immigration and discrimination on the grounds of nationality are not abstract concepts they are daily realities at Nanterre University. Moreover many students are either sans-papiers** or about to become so and are at permanent risk of expulsion.

Democracy according to the administration
The administration practises selection and does nothing to prevent the expulsion of sans-papiers.
On Monday a peaceful blockade of the administration (which did not prevent lessons taking place). With their usual feel for dialogue and restraint the president, rather than arranging a meeting to resolve te problem, set campus security on the students. The security staff had a field day, using pepper spray tear gas (A category 6 weapon, which can only be carried with special accreditation...) on the group of students, insulting and threatening many of them. The only response of the administration to those who peacefully called for a basic right (to education) to be respected was violence.

We must react: If we let the administration repress these students with impunity any criticism, any protest, any objecting voice in the future will be silenced. What happens in our university concerns us directly, we must live up to our responsibilites here and now.

Registration for all!
French-Foreigners: same studies, same rights!
Suppression of the DAP
Regularisation of all sans-papiers!

General Assembly Thursday 2nd November 12H30 amphitheatre E2

* In France anyone with a Baccalaureate or who has three years work experience has the right to enrol on a university course. Fees are nominal. Selection is on permitted on the basis of competitive examinations and is practised on a small number of courses.
** 'Sans-papiers is a term that refers to someone without the necessary documentation to live in France. This can refer to a recent immigrant, an illegal immigrant or an immigrant whose application to stay has been refused.

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