Student protest against loan system

Student protest against loan system

A few hundred students protested against the loan system in The Hague on Thursday afternoon. There was an attempt to occupy a ministry building, but that plan failed.

The demonstration was organised by the trade union FNV Young & United and the National Union of Students (Landelijke Studenten Vakbond -LSVb). The march went past the party offices of VVD and D66 and the Ministry of Finance. The protesters had two demands: the abolition of the loan system and compensation for the ‘loan generation’.

^{(Photo: SRVU)}

Batons
During the march, according to chairwoman Kayleigh Hofstede of the Nijmegen student union AKKU, “excessive violence” was used against the protesters when they threatened to come too close to the ministry. The police beat them with batons, she told university magazine Vox.

The telephone conversation between the activists and Social Affairs Minister Wouter Koolmees was more constructive: he promised to take the students’ signals to the formation table. (HOP, JvE)