Yaël Braun-Pivet, made the remark after a 20-year-old Jewish student was barred from entering a lecture hall at the elite French university Sciences Po in Paris by pro-Palestinian demonstrators who occupied the place and called her ‘a Zionist.’

The president of the French National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, denounced on Thursday “a climate of anti-Semitism that has taken hold” in France, and deplored the fact that universities can become “places of unbridled militancy.”

She made the remarks after a 20-year-old Jewish student was barred from entering a lecture hall at the elite French university Sciences Po in Paris by pro-Palestinian demonstrators who occupied the place and renamed it “Gaza Amphitheater”.

The student, who is a member of the Union of Jewish Students in France (UEJF),  was greeted with shouts of “Don’t let her in, she’s a Zionist.’’

In the framework of a ‘’European day of mobilization for Palestine’’, the hall was lined with Palestinian flags and keffiyehs. Outside the university, students, including UEJF members, were also taken to task by pro-Palestinian activists. While the UEJF members called for a minute’s silence for all the victims of Hamas and for the release of the hostages, the pro-Palestinian activists responded in the negative, chanting “From the river to the sea,’’ a slogan which means the destruction of the State of Israel.

In an interview to daily newspaper Le Parisien she stressed that ‘’this is anti-Semitism”.

“I wanted to attend this conference. As soon as I got to the door, some masked organizers blocked me. They said: ‘You, you’re not coming in! We know you”, the young woman begins. Someone told me that a participant had shouted: ‘Don’t let her in, she’s a Zionist!’ Over the microphone, the organizers said: ‘Careful, there’s the UEJF in the room! Calling me a Zionist, refusing me entry, that’s anti-Semitism,” she laments.

“You’ll get a free ticket to Poland”.

She told the paper about the remarks she has been subjected to since the Hamas attack on October 7: “Every day, you hear jokes, even about the Holocaust. I’ve heard: ‘Ah, she’s going to get a rocket’, or ‘You’ll get a free ticket to Poland’… Every month, there are things. But it’s a very noisy minority. The problem is that the majority remain silent”, she said.

The action was sharply criticized by the French government, in particular the Minister of Higher Education and Research Sylvie Retailleau, who visited the site.

In a press release, Sciences Po denounced the blockade of the amphitheatre and said that sanctions could be taken against the “intolerable actions” of these students.

At a cabinet meeting, French President Emmanuel Macron, who is himself a Sciences Po alumnus, called the incident “unspeakable and perfectly intolerable.”

The President of the National Assembly, Yael Braun-Pivet, who is Jewish, criticized the fact that several pro-Palestine demonstrators had their faces covered.

“It is not acceptable to commit these acts of racism, of anti-Semitism anywhere in society, but even more so in a university”, she insisted, denouncing those who use the current conflict between Israel and Hamas as a “pretext to target part of the population”. “Sciences-Po cannot become an Islamo-leftist bunker,” asserted her Senate counterpart Gérard Larcher on France 2 television.

“The university, a grande école, must be a place for debate, for expression, for free opinion”, he continued, denouncing “wokism”, “an ideology that is taking over part of the university” according to him.

The Minister for Gender Equality, Aurore Bergé,  wrote on X that “what’s going on here has a name, anti-Semitism.’’.

The student was encouraged to file a legal complaint.

France – which is home to the world’s largest Jewish population after Israel and the United States and to Europe’s biggest Muslim community – has seen a rise in anti-Semitic acts and pro-Palestinian protests since Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7.

According to a survey  published at the end of last year, 9 in 10 French Jews attending universities have had an experience with antisemitism.