Arcade Fire, director back Quebec students

June 2, 2012
Issue 

Students on strike Quebec have won public displays of support from Montreal-based rock band Arcade Fire and Quebecios actor and director Xavier Dolan.

Hundreds of thousands of students have been on strike across Quebec for more than 100 days against fee hikes, defying intense government repression.

MontrealGazette.com said on May 21 that members of indie rock band Arcade Fire appeared on the May 19 episode of Saturday Night Life, hosted by Mick Jagger, sporting the red squares, that have become a symbol of the student struggle, on their outfits.

Dolan, meanwhile, showed his support at the Cannes film festival, where his third film as a director, Laurence Anyways, was premiering. On May 18, Dolan and the film's cast appeared on Cannes' red carpet with red squares pinned on them.

MontrealGazette.com said: “Dolan has been vocal in his support for the strike, participating in demonstrations and speaking out on Twitter.

“'To crumble before the current State is to say yes to a progressive fascism that will prove far more destructive than the (tuition) hike,' he tweeted, in French, on Sunday.”

[A leader of the Quebec student struggle, Guillaume Legault, will be a feature speaker at the national conference of the socialist youth organisation Resistance, in Adelaide, July 20-22.]

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