Anti-Sanchez protests, ultra-right presence investigated

Members of the Spanish ultra-right-wing force Revuelta are allegedly claiming charges against Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez in Paiporta, one of the towns in the Valencian Generalitat most affected by the Dana natural disaster. On Sunday, the Spanish daily ElDiario published extracts of a Whatsapp chat where a militant of the acronym claimed the verbal and physical aggression against the premier, culminating in the assault on his car and the destruction of the windows with a baton.

"We destroyed their car, but we only managed to hit him with a stick in the back," reads the text, published by a user on behalf of the 'association'. Now the authorities are investigating an infiltration of neo-fascist circles in the violent episodes that punctuated the institutional visit of Sanchez himself along with monarchs Felipe VI and Letizia and the governor of the Valencian Community, Carlos Mazòn. Interior Minister Fernando Grance Marlaska confirmed the identification of those responsible for the assaults, although no arrests have been made at the moment and the political motive for the attacks has not been established. Además, the union of Vox, offered its legal assistance to those who attacked Sanchez's car.

Revuelta, in Italian Revolt, is a far-right movement that became notorious in the autumn 2023 anti-Sanchez protests against the granting of amnesty to the Catalan leaders who engineered the 2017 secessionist referendum. On Instagram, where it has 40,000 followers, the movement claims to be fighting 'against the modern world' and sponsors its latest activities to support the victims of the Valencian disaster. The group is believed to be close to Vox, although there is no evidence of a direct link, while some relations with smaller formations of the European and Italian ultra-right, such as 'Generazione popolare', are apparent. The more general protests did not spare Carlos Mazón, president of the Community, who was accused of underestimating (or not understanding) the extent of the flooding that devastated the territory.

Mazón is an expression of the Partido Popular, Spain's main centre-right force, and came to the leadership of the community in 2023 in a coalition together with Vox. The link with the radical right was severed in May 2024, but Mazón had previously come under pressure from allies and agreed to eliminate the Valencian Emergency Unit: an emergency unit that could be deployed for cataclysms such as the one triggered by the flood. Vox is known for a line of open hostility to EU ecological policies or outright denial of the climate crisis.

*This article is part of the Pulse project and was written with a contribution from the newspaper El Confidencial.