With our correspondent in Antananarivo, Sarah Tétaud

The administration is running five months behind… On Monday, violent clashes occurred with military personnel who intervened on campus in spite of university regulations. Three students were hospitalized. Also, yesterday, to ease tensions, the administration posted a list of students eligible for one month of scholarship payment.

But posting the beneficiary lists was not to have the desired effect. In just a few minutes, the sheets were torn up and thrown to the ground by students from the faculty of sciences, furious at being mocked in this way.

One month instead of the five owed. Unthinkable for these young people who desperately need this grant to study and eat, and who, they explain, have already made a concession.

"Right now, we're only asking for (payment of) equipment, plus four months of scholarship." This representative of biochemistry students continues: "What has angered the students and what offends us is that at the (university) presidency and within the teaching team, they threaten us with disciplinary action when we are only demanding our rights. What we're asking for is fair. We're simply asking them to give us our scholarships for four months and our equipment, and that's all."

Since starting classes in November, none of them have received the six euros of scholarship per month (between 25,000 and 30,000 ariary depending on the student's level of study, editor's note). While the sum seems derisory, it remains vital for the majority of grant recipients, like Fano, a physics student: "I need this money to print course notes. Otherwise, I have to go into debt with internet cafés or my friends to be able to study."

This biology student, meanwhile, can no longer afford his lab specimens. Hence the importance of equipment payment. "The animals we use in the laboratory, frogs, rabbits, mice, are too expensive for us! It hampers studies, because (the university) doesn't accept that we don't have money. We have to pay if we want to enter the lab."

Yesterday, students gave the Malagasy administration until Friday to resolve this situation. A general strike is being considered starting Monday in case of non-payment.

For their part, literature students at the Antananarivo faculty have agreed to receive one month of scholarship against the four initially planned.

In Tuléar and Toliara, students have received payment of the four months planned.