A group of masked men attacked far-left protestors occupying the Faculty of Law at the University of Montpellier on Thursday night, forcing several of the protestors to be taken to hospital. The occupiers blamed the university administration for the attack.

Around fifty students occupied the law faculty, claiming to be on strike until they were forcibly removed from late Thursday into the early hours of Friday morning, broadcaster France Info reports.

Video footage from the incident shows 10 to 15 masked men attack the occupiers with what appear to be batons and other blunt weapons and disperse them from a lecture hall.

Police are said to have arrived on the scene at around 1 am and several of the protestors were taken to a nearby hospital due to the injuries sustained in the attack.

Members of the occupying students claimed that the Dean of the Faculty of Law was behind the attack, though Dean Philippe Petel denied any involvement with the attack or the masked men.

A student who claimed to witness the attack told French media, “A little before midnight everyone came out of the amphitheatre because we saw people all dressed in black and [Dean] Petel, they entered by a door [of the amphitheatre] which was closed. It was the dean who opened the door. I saw it with my own eyes.

“Law students recognized [among them] professors from the faculty. A professor in civil law and a professor of law history,” they added.

The occupation is just the latest of a number of far-left occupations of universities. Far-left groups along with migrants have been occupying a university in the notorious, migrant-heavy Paris suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis since January 30th.

🚨À PARTAGER🚨Nous dénonçons l'occupation sauvage d'un bâtiment de l'université #Paris8 #SaintDenis par quelques activistes d'extrême-gauche. Plus d'une centaine de clandestins y sont désormais logés dans des salles de cours en toute illégalité. #Occupation pic.twitter.com/otmMMOOY4E — La Cocarde Etudiante (@CocardeEtud) March 20, 2018

Observers recently noted a large amount of anti-white racist graffiti in the occupied building, including phrases such as “death to whites!”

Far-left activists and migrants also caused intense outrage after they occupied the Basilica of Saint-Denis last Sunday to protest the French government’s new asylum laws. The basilica, which houses the tombs of French kings, was forced to cancel Sunday evening mass as a result.