Good news finally on the university strike front?
Since January a minority of students, helped by a tiny band of professional activists, have exploited the passivity of the majority and the indifference, incompetence and hypocrisy of university administrations to reduce, once again, the academic school year to rubble, especially in the humanities.
The government has done nothing.
Some say Sarkozy’s inaction is due to fear of an “incident”. Anti-government extremists are itching for a martyr that will sets the country aflame. This cannot be denied.
However another explanation is more cynical. In this view, the government is simply waiting for certain crazy, irresponsible or politically motivated universities to self destruct. After years of suffering from cancelled classes, blocked auditoriums, and professors who heroically withhold grades, students will simply vote with their feet and walk away from such parodies of higher learning. Enrolment and thus budgets will fall, and the problem will solve itself.
Whatever the reason, the government has for the past three months taken a hands-off attitude to the hostage-taking of tens of thousands of university students.
The elites don't care. They send their kids to prepas, grandes écoles and private schools, which NEVER strike. The universities have become the refuge of the poor and uninformed middle classes. Students and parents often have to make sacrifices to attend university. And yet, in many universities, the administration and professors think nothing of cynically playing politics with their young charges.
* These university professionals say they oppose selection but then intentionally throw out half the students in the first year.
* They do not officially strike (that would lesson their salary) but then do nothing to ensure that classes take place.
* They do not speak out to denounce the abuses and exactions of their colleagues, even when they disagree. (At least Axel Khan, president of Paris VII, had the courage to admit he was a coward.)
* They do nothing to protect the majority of students who want to learn. (Even when they have the power, they fail to punish illegal occupation of buildings, destruction of property and intimidation of professors and students by the threat of physical violence.)
But now, for the first time, the government is weighing in.
In an article from this week’s Le Point the government proposes to fine illegal blockers 1000 euros.
This represents progress.
And yet, one cannot help but ask about the measures not suggested:
Why not EXPELL students who illegally use physical violence to prevent other students from attending classes, or who disrupt lectures and attack professors, or who destroy public property (a crime)?
Why not ARREST activists who are not students at all who illegally force their way into university buildings with the intent to cause harm? (HOT NEWS: see Le Figaro on the arrests in CAEN today.
Why not FORCE PROFESSORS TO CHOOSE BETWEEN STRIKING AND TEACHING, instead of paying them, in some case, to aid and abet the blocking of their own classes? (Valérie Pécresse scandalized Le Monde by suggesting that university workers who block classes not be paid.)
Why not DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY FROM UNIVERSITY PRESIDENTS. Insist on real governance. Institutions of higher learning are not political playthings, and this abuse of them by their administrators should not be tolerated. (This means you, Mr. Georges MOLINIÉ, political hack and destroyer of the great Paris IV Sorbonne).
So yes, a 1000 euros fine, why not?
But the vast majority of students who want and need to study, in particular the humanities, deserve much better protection than a theoretical fine imposed on people who will probably not pay it.
Rumor is, some might not be students at all!...
