The Valrose site, one of the University of Nice’s campuses, was blocked yesterday morning by about ten students who are members or sympathizers of the Sauve ta fac 06 collective. Given the number, they were likely revolutionary elites.
With the help of barriers and trash bins, they blocked all access to the site.
This blockade lasted for several hours and was later lifted by the students, who went to protest downtown with the unions. One could define it as a ‘temporary’ occupation.
The explanation for this initiative came from the protagonists: “Faced with the non-designation of the day by the university presidency of #Nice06, the students in struggle are forced to block Valrose! Everyone protest at 10am #Manif19Avril #NoToPaidMasters #NoToSocialSelection #Parcoursup.”
“Forced” – that is indeed what we read. Forced by whom, if not by themselves? Lunar, isn’t it?
For the record, the collective Sauve ta fac 06 demands two things:
The end of what it calls “selection” for university entry and the end of “paid masters.”
In other words, the withdrawal of the law recently passed by Parliament. Is that all? Such modesty!
But this Thursday, another demand was added to the list: to postpone exams and refrain from grading absentees for the day of April 19.
In fact, shouldn’t the revolutionary (even if temporary) see it through to the end?
So, they are pseudo-revolutionaries with a penchant for undue advantages. Strangely, it seems a bit petty bourgeois and… clever.
For several weeks, students and activists have been organizing “blockades” of universities to oppose the law reforming access to higher education.
Such actions have become ritualistic—and they were undoubtedly essential to commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of May ’68… But on what grounds do they rely?
Student unions often invoke, in these circumstances, the right to strike, which is protected by the Constitution in France. But the origin of this right is all too often forgotten.
The strike is part of the inherent balance in a society made up of multiple interests. If one adheres to the principle that founded the right to strike, the concept of a “student strike” is, to say the least, doubtful.
The second consequence is even more important: the right to strike allows a group to stop working. It does not authorize preventing others from working…
This is the essential rule that should be applied today in faculties blocked by minorities hostile to “democratism”—otherwise, we risk seeing win again the methods of all those who, historically, sought to force people to share a uniform will.
