php - Laravel error in artisan when using composer

I've been googling for this for a time now. Hopefully you can help me.

I have a server hosted on 1and1 and I am using laravel. When I want to install or update a package via composer (php composer.phar update) I have this error:

Warning: Unexpected character in input: '\' (ASCII=92) state=1 in /htdocs/artisan on line 31

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING in /htdocs/artisan on line 31

The line in artisan is:

$kernel = $app->make(Illuminate\Contracts\Console\Kernel::class);

Overview of versions
php -v PHP 5.5.32 (cli) (built: Feb 15 2016 16:13:44)
php artisan -V Laravel Framework version 5.2.22

So I am using a higher version as required by laravel (PHP >= 5.5.9) but I still get these errors