Hundreds of students at Paris university went on strike today to protest at the plans of president-elect Nicolas Sarkozy to reform France's higher education system.
Around 500 students voted to support the strike action and protesters immediately blocked access to the Tolbiac annexe of the Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne university.
"There were no courses and pickets have been set up after the vote," said a spokesperson for the student union.
Conservative leader Sarkozy was elected president on Sunday, promising economic and social reforms that have alarmed many trade unionists.
The higher education minister, Francois Goulard, called on the head of the Paris I site to make sure university courses continued and to guarantee access to the Tolbiac buildings.
"It is totally unacceptable that an extremist minority, showing their scorn for democracy, should try to oppose the enactment of the president of the republic's programme," Goulard said in a statement.
Sarkozy has promised to make higher education reform a priority and wants to introduce a law before the end of the summer to give universities more autonomy, handing them power to hire and fire staff, set salaries and manage their assets.
He has said universities should focus more on vocational courses, be encouraged to seek outside financing and be given more scope to expel underperforming students.
France has some 80 universities, which are public, with professors and lecturers given the status of civil servants.
There is no selection process and the French media estimates that there are some 1.5 million students nationwide.
The country's brightest students are often drawn to a handful of so-called "grand ecoles", elite business, engineering and public administration schools that are very hard to get into and outside the broader university system.