Majority of the events that I got to attend outside of Sciences Po were rather expat community oriented. There were music concerts of American singers (shoutout to Father John Misty fans :), the Saint Patrick Day outings…but the most memorable is the anti-Trump rally, which was organized in response to the US President’s travel ban. It was great to see so many members of the rather large American expatriate community marching together with other civically engaged individuals from all over the world (many non-American members of the Sciences Po community participated as well). I was attending the rally with two other huskies, which was a great way to show that members of Northeastern community care and ready to engage no matter where in the world they are.
The first thing that people ask me about when hear that I attended a rally in Paris is security. And here I must mention that I have never during my stay in Paris felt unsafe. The rally was coordinated with the authority and the police units were following the crowd along the way. City in general has very tight security everywhere, every person’s backs checked even at the store entrance.
Below are some photos me and my friends took at the rally-
Another very interesting political event with what I would describe as global significance was the Sciences Po Election Night Party. Many students have gathered at the university to watch the election results and listen to the panel of the members of Sciences Po faculty. What many of my fellow American friends found unusual is that the results of the first round are announced at 8pm on the election day, hence right after the voting polls close. It is apparently due to the fact that French people have invented an unfailable mechanism that allows them to predict the results of an election by counting the votes only in several regions of the country. I am not exactly sure of how the witty system works exactly, but nevertheless at 8pm on April 23rd we knew that several weeks later French will be choosing between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen. When Macron’s victory in the first round was announced, Sciences Po students were cheering and clapping loudly, making it clear that he is certainly the favorite candidate of the young liberal French elite.
