Hundreds of thousands of Spaniards demonstrated in cities across Spain on Wednesday evening in protest against the government’s handling of the migration crisis in Ceuta and in solidarity with people in the Spanish enclave.
In Madrid alone, three demonstrations drew around 150,000 people, according to the capital’s city council, ABC reports.
Spain’s two major parties on the right, Partido Popular and Vox, took part in the protest, and both were represented by their party leaders Alberto Núñez Feijóo and Santiago Abascal, according to the Spanish newspaper.
BREAKING:
Mass-protests in Madrid tonight as Spaniards take to the streets across the country against illegal migration and the invasion of Ceuta.
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) September 2, 2026
Numerically inferior counter-demonstrations were also held, including in Barcelona.
Plaza de Sant Jaume was divided in two by a police cordon set up by the Catalan police. At one end, around 300 demonstrators from the far left gathered, with Palestinian flags and chants of «no human being is illegal» and «fascists out of our neighbourhoods». On the other side, thousands of people filled the entire available area and the adjoining streets.
The mood was at times aggressive towards the government:
In Valencia, the demonstration in the town hall square developed into a fierce revolt against Pedro Sánchez’s government and its handling of the crisis in Ceuta. The demonstrators demanded that he resign immediately, and went so far as to demand that he be «put in prison», after branding him a «traitor to the country».
Almost five weeks after the massive storming of Ceuta by Moroccan migrants, more than 10,000 of them remain in the enclave, triggering daily protests by the local population, Reuters reports.
The lack of coverage of the massive demonstrations in Spain by European establishment media this Wednesday evening is striking. It appears that they are afraid of the signal effect.
