A massive student protest over Quebec’s plans to raise tuition fees escalated this week amid violent clashes with police and the prospect of snap elections to pave the way for conciliation.
Despite the growing unrest, the government of the French-speaking Canadian province has refused to meet with student groups behind 11 weeks of protests, after talks broke down earlier in the week.
“There will be no dialogue [with them] as long as the violence continues,” Quebec Premier Jean Charest said on Thursday, after police arrested 85 people for smashing storefronts and vandalizing cars during a riot in Montreal on Wednesday night.
Photo: Reuters
Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, spokesman of the most militant student group, CLASSE, responded in a televised address that the group and its followers “don’t encourage violence, have never encouraged violence and I don’t encourage violence.”
Approximately 180,000 university and college students, or 45 percent of all students in the province, are “on strike,” having refused since the beginning of February to attend classes in order to draw attention to a planned 75 percent hike in school fees over five years to C$3,800 (US$3,862) starting in September.
Negotiations began on Monday between the two sides to find a way forward, but broke down two days later, with the government accusing CLASSE of reneging on a temporary truce by posting a schedule for new demonstrations on its Web site.
Education Minister Line Beauchamp declined to resume negotiations as long as CLASSE, which represents almost half of the students on strike in Quebec, was at the table.
The move was widely seen as an attempt to divide the protesters. The other two main student groups, however, maintained solidarity with CLASSE, leading to a deadlock.
The Charest government’s strategy in dealing with student unrest “is difficult to read,” said Pascale Dufour, a politics professor at the University of Montreal.
Charest, whose beleaguered Liberal Party has made gains in recent polls, worries electors would punish his party at the ballot box for backtracking on the planned tuition hike, which is part of his government’s overall efforts to rein in a burgeoning budget deficit, she explained. Dufour noted that young people typically do not vote in large numbers in elections.
Analysts said Charest could win a fourth mandate in snap elections if he triggered them now, but the student crisis may prompt him “to let the unrest froth until it becomes a crisis and then call for a general election to settle the matter,” Dufour said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese