France says supports Harvard, welcomes foreign students

Paris: France’s foreign minister on Saturday said his country supported students and staff at Harvard, after President Donald Trump tried to ban foreign students from the prestigious US university.

“We stand with universities facing the threat of government control, restriction to their funding, constraints on their curricula or research projects,” Jean-Noel Barrot said during a commencement address at the high-profile HEC business school in Paris.

“We stand with Harvard faculty, with Harvard students, facing unjustified stress and anxiety right now,” he added in English.

U.S. President Donald Trump on June 5 suspended for an initial six months the entry into the United States of foreign nationals seeking to study or participate in exchange programs at Harvard University, amid an escalating dispute with the Ivy League school.

Trump’s proclamation cited national security concerns as a justification for barring international students from entering the United States to pursue studies at the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based university.

Harvard in a statement called Trump’s proclamation “yet another illegal retaliatory step taken by the Administration in violation of Harvard’s First Amendment rights.”

“Harvard will continue to protect its international students,” it added.

Read More: Trump administration orders extra vetting of all visa applicants linked to Harvard

The suspension can be extended beyond six months. Trump’s proclamation also directs the U.S. State Department to consider revoking academic or exchange visas of any current Harvard students who meet his proclamation’s criteria.

The directive came a week after a federal judge in Boston announced she would issue a broad injunction blocking the administration from revoking Harvard’s ability to enroll international students, who make up about a quarter of its student body.

The administration has launched a multifront attack on the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university, freezing billions of dollars in grants and other funding and proposing to end its tax-exempt status, prompting a series of legal challenges.