In a ruling delivered on August 31, an administrative judge has determined that the Paris student housing agency overstepped its authority and violated the rights of students.

Can CROUS, France's public administration for student life, compel students to vacate their lodgings to make them available for use during the Paris Olympics in the summer of 2024? The answer, according to the Paris administrative court, is no.

In a decision released on Thursday, August 31, the judge suspended the Paris CROUS's decision to restrict occupancy in specific university residences until June 30, 2024, in order to accommodate individuals authorized to participate in the organization of the Olympic and Paralympic Games from July to early September 2024. In the spring, the Paris, Créteil, and Versailles regional education authorities had been requested to free up about 1,000 spots each, totaling 3,000 rooms out of the 22,000 available in the Ile-de-France region.

This announcement sparked outrage among several unions, including "Solidaires Etudiant-e-s" (Students in Solidarity), which took legal action in the administrative courts on August 15 to challenge the "requisition." While the union group succeeded in obtaining an emergency injunction, the final ruling on the matter is yet to be decided in the coming weeks. Photo by Anne Jea., Wikimedia commons.