In mid November last year, a wave of student occupations and strikes started to spread through French universities. The aim was to prevent the right wing government from attacking the education system. The recent occupations across French universities are part of an attempt by students globally to fight for a better world. Over the past few years, students in Spain, Portugal and Germany have mobilised in their tens of thousands against governments and unelected institutions trying to impose their neoliberal agenda. At the end of November, a national co-ordination meeting was organised in western France to bring students together from different universities involved in the blockade with the aim of spreading the action. A delegation from Britain went over to give a message of solidarity from students in Britain. KATHARINE KIBELA reports.
Going to France was an eye opener dent, as a girl, as a black person, as an individual and as part of a community.
I went to France and read out a statement of solidarity from a British student union (University of East London) to the French students that had occupied a university in Rennes, which basically meant I was reading a speech via a translator about the state of the British education system to representatives of 27 different universities from around
To see what seemed like at least 200 students crammed in to a lecture theatre listening intently as each university reported back on the progress of the movement in their part of the world was an awesome sight.
The reports ranged from the endearingly comic (one guy explained that it was hard to get ideas of the movement across to bourgeois students that are surrounded by Voltaire) to the impressive and awe-inspiring as one girl stepped up and explained that she had been involved in a couple of very successful blockades involving thousands of students, teachers and union workers that had gone on strike on the day of the marches to give their support. They had managed to stop all going to and from the university for weeks.
But the real jaw dropper came from Berlin: a girl reported on behalf of her country and spoke about what sounded like the whole country having decided to march and how the whole movement in Germany was so strong they were pushing for a national day to protest.
Throughout the meeting and in varying strengths of passion were smaller political groups trying to use the event as a platform for their own beliefs.
Sometimes they were clapped, sometimes they got pulled off the stage according to how helpful the comments were and how much patience the stuCents
The student union system is different there and something we take for granted. Only one per cent of students are joined up, but the involvement and undertaking of matters in to their own hands puts Britain to shame.
There were a lot of students that seemed to have turned up just to show support. Even though they could not get in to the main hall, they hung around the university and organized food, music and various forms of entertainment for everyone. I reckon there were easily about 000 students that day and most of them would sleep there that night.
There were a few problems with sched .... One girl stepped up and explained that she had been involved in a couple of very successful blockades involving from the French thousands of students, uling anything with one uni in particular being made up of 40,000 students in many different sites.
Different tactics to get people involved were interesting: one uni started a political fanzine, another had organized a day of free food from the canteen, others targeted schools, as they were more likely to do walk outs.
There were students from all over Europe but the giversity (in other words lack of nonwhite students) was woeful. The one black student that did speak expressed a concern about the knock-on effect of the reforms if they carried them out in France on African education systems as they take their lead
What I read out basically explained how the fees in Britain were turning the education
tive Nantes: French students blockade their university intake of breath as I relayed the figures of debt the average British student was expected to leave university with.
It seemed that the students were split in half: some wanted to carry on going until they got what they wanted and others wanted to go in to negotiations, which basically meant they were a bit fed up with not eating or sleeping properly Coincidentally it seemed that the richer looking students were the ones that wanted to throw in the towel.
By the end of the day Italy and Switzerland were also involved and an inter-European day, December 13th, had been announced as a day of protest.