In France, the schools, universities and pretty much any other establishment are closed to the public. After around 7pm, the doors are actually physically chained. So it’s difficult to get in or out even if you are a university staff, student or professor. In business hours, if you are a member of the university, you must present ID and pass through security or welcome desk (a bit like in companies). The irony is that these are publicly funded institutions!
Grocery stores also have multiple security patrolling the store. Funny, sometimes the security has to lock your bag with some tools when you get in, and cut it off (or search it) when you get out!
> In France, the schools, universities and pretty much any other establishment are closed to the public. [...] In business hours, if you are a member of the university, you must present ID and pass through security or welcome desk
Which damn universities are you talking about? I sure have no issue roaming on the campus of the local university, going to libraries and administration and visiting former professors without any security check. That would be hard in the first place given how vast and open is the campus. The only place some sort of check are mandatory (half of the time) is one of the student association asking to show the membership card when buying beers.
At some point after Charlie Hebdo there was annoying security checks in the parisians univs I was attending but that stopped within a year or so.
There is usually one vigil in stores, but certainly not "patrols". For the record, countries with no immigration issue like Japan or Czech Republic don't have this kind of security in stores. Univ cafeteria in Japan is also open to all, and there are occasionally some hobo going in.
It's pretty common to have U.S. universities lock buildings at night as well, just not as early as 7pm, with exceptions such as computer labs, libraries, etc. It's generally a pretty good idea to lock up large buildings with a huge amount of capital equipment inside them when they're not being used.
I'd say most universities are open with public events but would otherwise like their resources dedicated to students, both for resource allocation and safety. It makes pretty good sense.
I'm not entirely sure I get the complaints here. Are people pining that hard to randomly walk around MIT and the buildings when they have zero affiliation with the university?
Although I don't think this is possible at MIT in particular, most U.S. universities will give you limited access to their libraries, even private ones.
I'm in the UK. I've never been to university so I don't know how it is in general, but in university towns like Oxford or Cambridge, I've visited university properties during the day and nobody has ever stopped me.
I've also never had security locking or searching bags in grocery shops. However, it's becoming (sadly) more common in museums and events that they'll do some sort of cursory bag search before you enter, supposedly due to risk of terrorism.
We do have guards in shops, depending on where you are, but they're there to catch thieves.
In Spain it is normal to have quite restricted access at night, fairly open access during the day, but there are bedels all over the place to watch who comes and goes and institutions with stealable stuff typically have quite restricted access involving a combination of key cards and physical vigilance.
Grocery stores also have multiple security patrolling the store. Funny, sometimes the security has to lock your bag with some tools when you get in, and cut it off (or search it) when you get out!
I wonder if it’s like that in any other country?