One out, a quarter out

摘要

"The university is going up in smoke," says a handwritten banner strung from a tree at the entrance to the University of Nanterre, near Paris. On the ground, a brazier is indeed burning. A cluster of students brandish bright pink flares. In the social-science tower block, where posters promote Olivier Besancenot's New Anti-Capitalist Party, others have stacked piles of desks and chairs in the entrance hall, in a bid to make teaching impossible. Militant workers who kidnap their bosses and big union-led protests of the sort planned for May 1st may hog the headlines. But a less visible battle has been disrupting as many as 20 of France's 83 universities-including the Sorbonne-for over two months.