On the evening of January 22, geographer Rachele Borghi inaugurated "Scientists in the face of Gaza," the first-ever seminar on the Palestinian issue organized by Sorbonne University lecturers. Borghi called it "a political act." "In a context where we are being ordered to censure ourselves regarding our positions on Gaza, we are going to tell the truth and adopt the language of international law," she said in her introduction.

But discussion and mobilization on this issue are not straightforward undertakings. The day before, on the Sorbonne-Paris Nord campus in Villetaneuse, north of Paris, a conference by researcher Pascal Boniface on his book Israël-Palestine, une Guerre Sans Limites? ("Israel-Palestine, A Limitless War?") was canceled by the school's president "for security reasons." At Sciences Po, in Paris, three students were suspended for 30 days from February 25, after disrupting a meeting of the Institute's board by shouting in a corridor: "Israel assassin, Sciences Po accomplice!"

On Monday, March 3, with the support of several La France Insoumise (radical left) MPs, around a hundred students from Sciences Po unfurled a Palestinian flag and denounced the management's "repression." In late January, police intervened at Sciences Po Strasbourg to evacuate students challenging their school's partnership with Israel's Reichman University.

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