From 30 January to 1 February, student elections are taking place at the University of Toulouse Jean Jaurès in France. These elections are for the central council of representatives of workers and students at the university, and election lists vie for the support of students with a range of political, social and local initiatives and plans.
During the 2023 student elections, the Collectif Palestine Vaincra — a member organization of the Samidoun Network — engaged with the left and progressive lists running in the student elections, urging their support for the #FreePalestinianStudents campaign to liberate imprisoned Palestinian students, a campaign supported by over 300 organizations around the world. In a recent report by Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association on the right to education, over 70 students at Bir Zeit University alone are currently imprisoned.
At the same time, most student organizations and blocs — including those that regularly contest student elections in occupied Palestine — are labeled “illegal organizations” by the Zionist occupation, part of the same list of designations used against all Palestinian political parties and even a growing number of human rights organizations, as well as internationalist and diaspora organizations like Samidoun. This means that students can be arrested, interrogated, subject to torture and imprisoned for their political, social and union activities.
The Collectif Palestine Vaincra is working to increase and develop internationalist solidarity between students in France and in Palestine, and salutes the main student organizations of Toulouse Jean Jaurès University for their commitment to stand alongside Palestinian youth in the face of colonial repression!
- The student list of Le Poing Levé: an anti-capitalist youth collective led by Revolution Permanente activists ( their written response can be read here )
- The list “Against precariousness, for union and solidarity” presented by the CGT SELA: the union of university students, high school students and apprentices of the CGT, a major French trade union federation.
- The “Student Progressives” list presented by the UEC, the UET and the UNEF : an alliance of different left-wing political and trade union organizations
Source: Collectif Palestine Vaincra
