Wave of school and university occupations across Europe.
To the cry of ‘End Fossil: Occupy!’, from Germany to Portugal, students have occupied and are occupying schools and universities. Occupations are also planned for November 2023
The news has gone largely unnoticed in the Italian media, to say the least. Yet students in half of Europe have occupied schools and universities to protest against climate change.
It has happened in recent days, starting at the beginning of May. A wave of student occupations has closed schools and universities across Europe as part of a renewed youth protest campaign against the inaction of governments and institutions on climate change. It involves twenty-two schools and universities, where the occupation is the first step of a campaign of protest that will last a month.
In Germany the protest has affected the universities of Wolfenbüttel, Magdeburg, Münster, Bielefeld, Regensburg, Bremen and Berlin. In Spain, students occupied the Autonomous University of Barcelona and organised seminars on the climate crisis. In Belgium, students occupied Ghent University. In the Czech Republic, about a hundred students camped outside the Ministry of Industry and Trade. In the United Kingdom, the universities of Leeds, Exeter and Falmouth have been occupied.
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But the strongest actions took place in Lisbon, where young people occupied seven schools and two universities. Students of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Lisbon even barricaded themselves in the dean’s office.
In the Portuguese capital there were also road blockades in solidarity with the occupations. Some of the teaching staff responded harshly too: teachers at one secondary school called the police to evict the pupils who had occupied it last week.
The actions are coordinated and are part of a campaign called ‘End Fossil: Occupy!’. The aim is to ‘radicalise’ the protest, going beyond the strikes already tried in 2019. The organisers write: ‘End Fossil: Occupy! is radicalising the youth climate movement in its tactics and demands. Occupations instead of strikes. Ending the fossil economy instead of “listening to the science”. End Fossil: Occupy! is reigniting the fire of the youth climate movement last seen in 2019.’
The current one is the second campaign of occupations of places of study: between September and December 2022, 50 schools and universities had already been occupied. At least three of them were violently cleared by riot police. The organisers claim that the first wave of protests at least led the University of Barcelona to make a module on the climate emergency compulsory for all students.
