Quebec’s university spring highlights public tradition

As 180,000 students continued their 12-week strike against tuition fee increases, and police responded with concussion grenades, pepper spray, batons, kettling and mass arrests, Quebec’s major city is becoming ungovernable, writes Jesse Rosenfeld for Now.

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. Outsiders, it seems, are having trouble grasping why students with the lowest-costing post-secondary tuition in the country (generally around $2,600 yearly) would be so exercised about the Charest government’s increase of $1,625 over five years. But the reality is, the hike portends a weakening of government commitment, and there’s a long tradition here of pushing back when public supports are threatened.
Full report on the Now site