{"id":214617,"date":"2026-09-04T09:04:20","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T09:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/214617\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T09:04:20","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T09:04:20","slug":"madrid-protest-sees-50000-people-against-spanish-pm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/214617\/","title":{"rendered":"Madrid protest sees 50,000 people against Spanish PM"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets\u00a0across Spain\u00a0to protest the government\u2019s handling of a mass crossing of migrants into Spain in July.<\/p>\n

Authorities say 50,000 protesters were on the streets in Madrid alone, furious at Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez as the migrant crisis in Spain\u2019s North African city of Ceuta<\/a> continues.<\/p>\n

Violence continued for hours after the major protests ended, with gunshots and explosions audible throughout the night on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The protesters bore signs reading, \u201cA united Ceuta will never be defeated,\u201d \u201cS\u00e1nchez to prison,\u201d and \u201cInvaders \u2014 go home!\u201d<\/p>\n

Spain is still dealing with the fallout after over\u00a070,000 foreign migrants surged\u00a0across its border<\/a> from neighboring Morocco in late July.<\/p>\n

Thousands of those\u00a0migrants remain in Spanish territory\u00a0even now.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happened to us was not a migratory crisis,\u201d Ceuta\u2019s regional leader, Juan Jes\u00fas Vivas, said Wednesday. \u201cWhat happened was the violation of Spain\u2019s territorial integrity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The protests came days after Ceuta residents tore down and\u00a0burned makeshift migrant shelters<\/a>\u00a0found in their city.<\/p>\n

An aerial view shows opposition right-wing and far-right parties staging nationwide demonstrations to blame the left-wing government for the migration crisis on Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026, in Madrid, Spain. Anadolu via Getty Images<\/p>\n

A riot police officer represses a demonstrator during a protest in Madrid on Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026. David Canales\/SOPA Images\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Demonstrators carrying Spanish flags moved toward beachside migrant camps last week, destroying shelters and setting fires as police attempted to keep protesters and migrants apart, according to Spain\u2019s public broadcaster RTVE and news agency EFE.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Sanchez has blamed Russia and Israel for amplifying the migrant crisis via social media, saying the July surge across the border was due to a misinterpretation of a Spanish Supreme Court ruling.<\/p>\n

S\u00e1nchez told radio station SER that research by the European Union\u2019s diplomatic service, the European External Action Service, indicated Russian and Israeli networks had participated in spreading disinformation alongside far-right networks, Reuters reported Aug. 31.<\/p>\n

The migrants camp on Sept. 2, 2026, in Ceuta, Spain. Getty Images<\/p>\n

Thousands of protesters wave Spanish and Ceuta flags during a protest in solidarity with the people of Ceuta on Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026. Jesus Merida\/SOPA Images\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout facts, without materials backed up by numbers, dates, names, there is simply nothing to talk about,\u201d Russia\u2019s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told reporters.<\/p>\n

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa\u2019ar accused S\u00e1nchez of \u201clying shamelessly,\u201d and said in a post on X that the Spanish leader was attempting to divert attention from domestic policy failures.<\/p>\n

Fox News\u2019 Efrat Lachter and the Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tens of thousands of people took to the streets\u00a0across Spain\u00a0to protest the government\u2019s handling of a mass crossing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":214618,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[129],"tags":[712,19219,304,5770,305,52],"class_list":["post-214617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pedro-sanchez","tag-madrid","tag-migrants","tag-pedro-sanchez","tag-protests","tag-spain","tag-world-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/117211972383680235","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}