Barcelona unrest: 128 arrested, 72 minors and 14 police injured after unauthorised protest

Protest turns violent in central Barcelona

Mossos d'Esquadra, the Catalan regional police, said an unauthorised protest organised through social media drew several hundred young people to Plaça de Catalunya on Saturday, 24 October. Early counts put the crowd at around 500 people from about 18:00, while La Vanguardia, cited by ANSA, put the number caught up in moments of tension at around 600. Some protesters overturned parked cars and motorbikes in the area and damaged bus shelters. Over the afternoon and night, firefighters carried out 33 interventions to put out burning bins, containers and other street furniture.

Looting and vandalism spread across the surrounding streets. The early balance counted about 14 shops looted by Saturday night, a figure the Mossos later raised to 23 shops vandalised in their Sunday statement. Motorbikes and bicycles were left on the ground or burned on improvised barricades. By about 21:45, no fires were still burning on urban items, though damage to shop windows, bus shelters, bins and a traffic light remained visible, and Mossos vans were still circling the square.

Arrests and police figures

In a statement on Sunday, 25 October, the Mossos reported 128 people detained, 72 of them minors. Of those detained, 122 were men and 6 were women, and two had prior records for public disorder. Officers also opened 68 administrative files for seized items, including bladed weapons, sprays, balaclavas, fireworks and stones. The statement said 14 Mossos officers were injured, four of them seriously. ANSA, citing the same force, reported 73 minors and 15 injured officers. An earlier count from Saturday evening had put the arrests at around 100, a quarter of them minors.

Reactions from city hall and the opposition

Mayor Jaume Collboni, a Socialist, condemned the violence and said the city hall would join the judicial proceedings. Catalonia's interior councillor, Núria Parlon, backed that step on behalf of the regional government. Collboni and Parlon described the events as in some ways parallel to those in Paris and other European cities. Collboni said judicial and financial consequences would fall on the adults involved and on the parents of the minors involved.

It will not go unpunished.

The Gremi de Restauració de Barcelona blamed the looting on a faulty risk assessment and an insufficient police response, saying no public administration had contacted it during the night.

The risk was therefore underestimated; as a consequence of this incorrect assessment, the deployed force proved insufficient.

The guild asked the city council to defend privately owned property that was vandalised and said the administration should cover repair costs through the corresponding procedures.

Party statements on the disorder

Xavier Garcia Albiol, the PP mayor of Badalona and the party's candidate for Barcelona in the general elections, condemned the disorder and asked for firm action within the limits of the law. Míriam Nogueras, Junts' candidate for Congress in Barcelona, said the events showed that Catalonia cannot be a place where some people raise their shutters each morning and others smash them at night.

This is not France, nor do we want it to be France.

Nogueras told Salvador Illa, president of the Generalitat, that Junts opposes extremes and polarisation, which she said was not equidistance. Vox blamed the Spanish president of the government, Pedro Sánchez, for the unrest, arguing that he had brought the chaos and violence seen in France and Italy, where protests are also under way. Its post on X carried the slogan 'O VOX o caos', which translates as 'Either VOX or chaos', alongside a video of the clashes.