France/ CPE - Universities will pay for damages

[Last Conformist]

Why did they trash university localities, BTW? Wouldn't have made more sense to trash, like, government buildings?

[GhengisFarb™]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
Why did they trash university localities, BTW? Wouldn't have made more sense to trash, like, government buildings?

They're Liberal Arts majors and didn't think it through.

[DAVOUT]

Democracy has a cost : when you use your right to express your opinion, sooner or later, the bill will be presented.

The only problem is that if you refrain from expressing your opinion, sooner or later, an heavier bill will inevitably come.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

theres no need to block the universities - if students want to protest and not go to class, then they are free to go out in the street and allow those who want to study to study.

[DAVOUT]

You are absolutely right. The students have to discover that protests poorly organized creates conditions used by mobs to make troubles, and sometimes stupidely just for fun.

I remember May 1968, I was working in a factory 3shifts, 3000 workers; one day the CGT representative (pure commie) made an announcement : "we are in strike, the factory will be closed. In order to protect our "instrument de travail", we will have teams present at the gates and in the plant, to take care of it, 24 hours per day and 7 days per week."
And the guarding teams were made of workers and middle management like me. Not a single pane of glass was broken.

[Vesayen]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Arrian: The way it works over here is that if the uni can't find out who did it: everyone pays regardless of involvement. I don't know how the unis in France would do it.

Which pretty much everyone agrees is unfair.

If I did not steal say, the common furniture in my dorm(as happens every so often) why the hell should I pay for it?

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
or they can make the ringleaders pay - the Assemblées Générales (general assemblies) who were responsible for the blocages.

Among those who blocked unis, only a small minority wrecked havoc. It were mostly far-left radicals who wrought destruction (whereas the uni-blocking movement was representative of most of the student left wing, from moderates to radicals).

Punishing those who voted for the strikes isn't going to target the actual culprits any better than punishing all the students, or punishing the unis.

The actual culprits, for those who have been caught, should be punished. For the destructions where the culprit hasn't been caught, then the damage should be paid for in a way identical as to other forms of destruction from unknown sources (insurance and state-aid, basically)

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
Why did they trash university localities, BTW? Wouldn't have made more sense to trash, like, government buildings?

The far-lefties who indulged in violence in unis wanted to create a near-revolutionary climate.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
I predict that the students will trash the unis again in protest over being made to pay for trashing things.

I wish that statement would be but an empty troll, but there is way too much truth to it

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Vesayen
Which pretty much everyone agrees is unfair.

If I did not steal say, the common furniture in my dorm(as happens every so often) why the hell should I pay for it?

So who the Hell is going to pay for it? It is a bit unfair, but it must be paid for, and it is most likely a person in that dorm.

[Fake Boris]

Some clarifications: the most badly thrashed universities were those where the students were expelled by the police, because things got trashed in the fight (ie Sorbonne).
A lot of universities might have suffered relatively insignificant damage, because concerts and parties were organised for hundreds, even thousands of people on some campus. We're talking about a few windows broken by drunkards or graffitis to clean up. Seeing the state of Bordeaux 3 as of now, I'm betting the bill here can never be more than a few grands.