Students from the Université de Montréal (UdeM) tried to force their way inside the UdeM administration building Thursday afternoon, using an improvised battering ram.
Around 300 protesters gained access to the Hall d’Honneur of the UdeM campus before demanding entry inside the administrative wing of the building by pounding on the door. After campus security left the building, protesters attempted to break the door open with a metal pole.
Masha, a biology student at UdeM, watched the scene from afar.
“Going inside the Hall d’Honneur is one thing – it’s symbolic and it’s sufficient – but it’s a good thing that the door didn’t break down,” he said in French. “I don’t know what would [have] happened then.”
The incident took place as part of a demonstration organized in response to the school’s provisional injunction against the hard picketing of classes.
“We’re here to express our anger toward the university,” Samuel, a philosophy student, said. “For us the strike isn’t over. This is just a show of contempt toward the student movement, and we won’t accept it.”
After protesters left the Hall d’Honneur, the march made its way toward Quebec Minister of Finance Raymond Bachand’s electoral offices on Côte-des-Neiges.
As riot police gathered outside, a group of students triggered the fire alarm to Bachand’s building. At that point, the demonstration was declared illegal by the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal.