Quebec’s Maple Spring: Many outsiders don’t get that the free tuition idea has deep roots here

[marmar]

from NOW Toronto:





Quebec’s Maple Spring
Many outsiders don’t get that the free tuition idea has deep roots here

By Jesse Rosenfeld


Montreal – As 180,000 students continue their 12-week strike against tuition increases, and police respond with concussion grenades, pepper spray, batons, kettling and mass arrests, Quebec’s major city is becoming ungovernable.

What was a fairly routine student strike has turned into what many are calling the Maple Spring.

Day after day, protesters wearing signature swatches of red cloth clog the streets of Montreal’s downtown chanting anti-capitalist slogans. A minority has responded to police aggression by trashing government offices and corporate windows, building barricades and ripping up concrete to heave onto police lines.

This week, CLASSE, the main coalition of student unions, rejected Premier Jean Charest’s attempt to defang the surging movement by spreading the tuition increase over seven years instead of five. Hours after the offer, thousands of protesters in a boisterous nighttime demo condemned it as an “insult.” .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.nowtoronto.com/news/story.cfm?content=186572

[xchrom]

1. Du rec. Nt

[Lasher]

2. Power to the students!