Tens of Thousands Protest Spanish PM Sanchez Over Migrant Crisis

Tens of thousands of Spaniards demonstrated across over 200 cities on Thursday, September 3rd, protesting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's migration policies amid a crisis in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta. Protesters chanted slogans like "Sanchez to prison!" and "Traitor Sanchez serves Morocco." In Madrid, the demonstration led to clashes, with at least four police officers injured and tear gas deployed. In Valencia, demonstrators burned effigies of Sanchez and Moroccan King Mohammed VI.

The protests were triggered by a surge of over 70,000 migrants from Morocco into Ceuta in late July. While the government states about 5,000 migrants remain illegally in Spain, local authorities estimate the number to be around 10,000, many of whom are minors who could potentially bring hundreds of relatives to Spain.

The right-wing opposition, led by the Vox party, blames Sanchez's lenient migration policies. Vox leader Santiago Abascal called for the prime minister's prosecution for "treason." A police report indicated Moroccan security forces directed migrants toward the border crossing in Ceuta. However, Sanchez defended Morocco, stating there was "no evidence of planning" by Moroccan authorities, while simultaneously accusing Israel, Russia, and right-wing groups of spreading disinformation online that fueled the migrant influx.

Spanish newspaper El Mundo reported that intelligence services had twice warned the government of the impending crisis. Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska claimed on August 28th that these warnings did not reflect the true scale of the influx, contradicting Defense Minister Margarita Robles, who asserted that advance intelligence was indeed received. The military intelligence report on July 27th, three days before the border breach, deemed a similar scenario "highly probable." An internal national police report on July 30th, the day of the breach, warned of an "extreme risk" of "imminent collapse," with El Mundo noting such warnings about mass infiltration into Ceuta had never been issued before.