Tribune of journalism students in France: “Gaza: we refuse silence”
In their forum entitled “Gaza: we refuse silence”, more than 700 students in journalism in France display their support for their sisters and colleagues who try, despite the immense risks, to inform.
Since October 7, 2023, more than 200 journalists have been killed by the Israeli army in Palestine and Lebanon.
Faced with this massacre, we, studying in journalism mobilized, affirm our total solidarity with the Palestinian people, from Gaza to the occupied West Bank, and with the civilians who are the first victims.
We also express our unconditional support for our sisters and colleagues Palestinian journalists, who continue to testify to the danger of their lives.
What is happening in Gaza is a genocide.
We do not use this word lightly: surveys carried out by organizations like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and independent UN inquiry commissions affirm the genocidal character of the raging horror against the Palestinian people in Gaza. Amnesty’s report, in particular, not only documents war crimes on a large scale, but also highlights elements demonstrating a genocidal intention on the part of Israel.
In this context, we salute the incredible courage of Palestinian journalists on the spot, which, despite the war conditions, permanent bombing, famine situations, power cuts, the loss of their loved ones and their colleagues, continue to document the realities of the genocide in progress.
Their work is vital, and their forced silence, one more crime.
In addition, we condemn the ban on international journalists to enter Gaza. This locking of the information testifies to a clear desire for control of the story and opacity, incompatible with the right to information and the freedom of the press.
On April 16, 2025, journalists mobilized in Paris and Marseille in support of their sisters from Gaza. We join their claims.
In turn, we make our voices heard.
We fully support the student movement, in France and internationally, which denounces war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Israeli army, as well as the active complicity of several Western governments.
As such, we call French higher education establishments to break their partnerships with Israeli universities.
We would like to express our solidarity with students Gazaoui, whose universities have been destroyed under bombs, and who are deprived of their fundamental right to education.
Our support also extends to Mahmoud Khalil, a figure of the pro-Palestinian student movement at Columbia University, imprisoned for a month and a half for having demonstrated against the Israeli occupation and today threatened with expulsion.
This repression is part of a disturbing trend in the criminalization of solidarity with Palestine, in the academic world and beyond.
In this continuity, we demand the immediate release of Georges Abdallah, a Lebanese communist activist imprisoned in France since 1984.
Detained for more than 40 years despite his parole granted in 2013, Georges Abdallah is a symbol of political repression against historical support for the Palestinian cause. His continued detention is a judicial and political scandal that we refuse to ignore.
In this same logic of repression and silence imposed around support for the Palestinian cause, in France, the citizen collective “hunger for justice for Palestine”, composed mainly of caregivers, has been leading a hunger strike for several weeks to denounce the current genocide in Gaza and the hypocrisy of French institutions. Their mobilization comes up against a wall of media silence. Very little relayed by the mainstream media, their action however embodies a human and political resistance in the face of organized forgetfulness. We provide them with all our support. Their determination and their courage force respect.
We call for an immediate and permanent cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, the only possible way to end the current humanitarian disaster. This cease-fire must be part of a broader dynamic of fighting the illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories and against the continuous expansion of the Israeli colonies, in violation of international law.
We also demand the release of all hostages, whether they are Israeli owned by Hamas or Palestinian impaired without charges by Israel.
We firmly denounce the systematic amalgamation between anti -Semitism and anti -Zionism, a dangerous process which aims to discredit any criticism of Israeli politics and to muzzle support from the Palestinian people.
As a future journalists, we are concerned by the dominant media treatment of the conflict to the Middle East, often biased in favor of Israel. We refuse to participate in a system that dehumanizes the Palestinians, ignores their suffering and minimizes the war crimes they undergo.
The critical analysis work carried out in particular by judgment on images, highlighted an absence of treatment of the conflict during crucial periods, revealing a media silence striking at the very moment when the bombardments intensified and when the Palestinian civilian losses increased. From this same perspective, Acrimed has been carrying out a meticulous work of structural biases of the major French media for years, showing how Israeli violence is euphemized, diluted responsibilities, and systematically marginalized Palestinian voices.
Added to this is the investigation published in January 2025 by humanity, in collaboration with the NGO Tech for Palestine, which has sift through more than 13,000 articles devoted to the conflict, from five major French newspapers. This analysis shows that, despite the extent of human losses on the Palestinian side, the Palestinian dead and sufferings are very little highlighted in titles, iconographic choices, or even editorial angles.
This treatment participates in a deep asymmetry in the way in which too many French media cover war in Gaza: focus on Israeli official speeches, almost absence of Palestinian voices, vagueness of responsibilities, euphemization of violence suffered.
This observation strengthens our desire to denounce a media landscape too often marked by unbalanced and dehumanizing stories, and to engage in a practice of truly critical journalism, rigorous and faithful to the facts.
We also regret the place left to certain editorialists or political leaders, whose remarks are disseminated without any contradictory or verification of the facts, thus participating in the dissemination of false and defamatory discourse.
It is not possible for us to continue our studies in silence in the face of this reality. We affirm our commitment to journalism in field, truth, justice.
We want to finish this forum with the words of Fatima Hassouna, a young Palestinian photojournalist killed at her home in an Israeli bombardment in Gaza on April 16, 2025, with ten family members. She had devoted her life, her gaze and her voice to documenting the fights and sufferings of her family. A few days before her death, she wrote:
“If I die, I want it to be a noisy death. I want the whole world to hear about my death. I want her to have an impact that does not fade over time. I want images that cannot be buried in space or time. »»
We hear it. We refuse silence.
Are signatories to date, on May 5, 2025, 712 students in journalism mobilized from the following schools ::
Bordeaux: Bordeaux Aquitaine journalism Institute (IJBA)
Cannes: Cannes (EJC) journalism school
Grenoble: Grenoble journalism school (EJDG)
Lannion: Lannion University Institute of Technology (IUT LANNION)
Lille: Academy of the Higher School of Journalism (ESJ)
Lille: Lille School of Journalism (ESJ Lille)
Lyon: journalists training center – Lyon antenna (CFJ Lyon)
Lyon: Master New Journalism Practices – Lumière Lyon 2 University (NPJ Lyon II)
Marseille: Aix-Marseille journalism and communication school (EJCAM)
Montpellier: Superior School of PRO Journalism in Montpellier (ESJ Pro Montpellier)
Paris: Center for Literary Studies and Applied Scientists-Paris-Sorbonne University (CELSA)
Paris: journalists training center (CFJ)
Paris: Training and improvement center for journalists (CFPJ)
Paris: French press institute (IFP)
Paris: Practical Institute of Journalism – University Paris Dauphine (IPJ)
Paris: Sciences Po Paris – Journalism School
Paris: Master Bilingual Journalism English-French-University Sorbonne Nouvelle
Prepare luck, for diversity in the media
Rennes: Sciences Po Rennes – Master Journalism
Strasbourg: University Center for Journalism Teaching (Cuej)
Toulouse: journalism school in Toulouse (EJT)
Tours: public journalism school in Tours (EPJT)
Valenciennes: Master Design Information and Transmedia Journalism (DIJT)-Polytechnic University of Hauts-de-France (UPHF)
Vichy: Vichy (IUT Vichy) University Institute of Technology)
