Barcelona's Collboni joins tough-on-crime push, calls for harsher gun penalties

Barcelona's Collboni joins the tough-on-crime push: calls for harsher gun penalties amid security crisis

Crime in Barcelona has fallen 11.2% over the past year, yet insecurity remains residents' top concern, tied with access to housing. Until now, Socialist mayor Jaume Collboni and his pro-independence allies treated the problem as a matter of "perception." The figures, according to the official narrative, showed improvement. But the discourse has changed.

From "perception" to incivil action

Collboni has made a public U-turn: he now waves the anti-crime flag and asks Congress to toughen penalties for illegal gun possession. Many see the move as electoral opportunism, less than a year before municipal elections. The nod to the "morenuda de Ripoll" — a jab at Aliança Catalana candidate Silvia Orriols — is no coincidence: the rise of far-right parties in Catalonia worries the PSC.

The most common criticism is that the coalition government has room to act through the Interior Ministry without needing incivil law reforms. The mayor's call for Congress to act sounds like passing the buck or a smokescreen, analysts say. Moreover, the proposal focuses on guns, while street crime, robberies and petty theft — which hit daily life hardest — require not harsher penalties but more police presence and judicial efficiency.

The electoral factor and public disillusionment

The U-turn comes amid widespread discontent. The sense of impunity fuels populist rhetoric, and voters, by their own account, feel they lack clear alternatives. "There's no one to vote for," some voices sum up, seeing both the traditional left and the hard right as failed options.

The open question is whether Collboni's change of tone will reverse the perception or, on the contrary, be seen as a late, self-interested gesture that deepens disaffection.