Nou, academics of all disciplines, let’s express our deep dismay in the face of the French government’s decision to suspend, since 1is August, the evacuations of Palestinian students from Gaza, including that scheduled for August 6. Such a decision goes against the fundamental principles of the rule of law: while a survivor student of Gaza is accused of anti -Semitism [l’étudiante Nour Attaalah est partie au Qatar, le 3 août]all the Palestinian students of Gaza are punished. Criminal law, which also affirms the presumption of innocence, knows only personal responsibility: “No one is criminally responsible only by his own fact” (art.121-1 of the penal code).
As soon as the situation in Gaza justifies that any person fleeing this area can benefit from international protection, the National Court of Asylum has affirmed, in an unprecedented decision rendered on July 11, that “Palestinian nationals from the Gaza Strip not protected by the United Nations Organization can be granted refugee status in application of the 1951 Geneva Convention due to the war methods used by Israeli forces since the end, in March 2025, of the cease-fire concluded on January 19, 2025”. The recent hardening of French politics, in contradiction with this recognition, is of freezing cynicism.
This political decision is heavy with implications when bombing and organized famine continue to kill dozens of Palestinians in Gaza every day. By suspending the evacuations, France suggests that the Gazaouis already welcomed should not have been. It targets a risk of suspicion any procedure what would be launched in the future, even though evacuations become more and more urgent. France thus aggravates its participation in the Israeli project of erasure and extermination of Palestinians at work in the Gaza Strip.
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