UK aback by fervor and staying power of student protests

[frigidmagi]

CSMonitor

[quote]Bitterly contested measures to triple Britain's university tuition fees were almost certain to pass into law Thursday, causing the most serious split yet in Britain’s governing coalition and prompting some to compare vociferous student protests with the Paris "événements" of 1968 that rocked the French political establishment to its core.

The pressure from weeks of street agitation by students – sometimes descending into clashes with police – are unlikely to block the legislation. But the chants of tens of thousands of angry students echoed through Britain’s streets Thursday, and placed the leader of its junior partner, the Liberal Democrats, in the firing line after he abandoned a pre-election pledge not to increase fees.

“I would feel ashamed if I didn't deal with the way that the world is, not simply dream of the way the world I would like it to be," said Mr. Clegg, defending his stance just hours before Thursday’s vote, which will see the cap on publicly subsidized undergraduate tuition rise from $4,800 to $14,500 by 2012 – almost double the current average of $7,605 for US state universities.

IN PICTURES: Britain student protest

“In the circumstances in which we face, where there isn't very much money around, where many millions of other people are being asked to make sacrifices, where many young people in the future want to go to university - we have to find the solution for all of that,â€