Gisbert gives Spain's government 24 hours and calls march on Ceuta

Gisbert issues 24-hour ultimatum over Ceuta sovereignty

If no measure is adopted within 24 hours, I will lead a march on Ceuta to do what the Army is not doing: defend Spain. The phrase, launched by activist Rubén Gisbert in a video, has peine a breach that goes far beyond the conventional political board. The autonomous city is not just any scenario: it is enduring unprecedented demographic pressure, with some 130,000 people on a usual census of 80,000, closed businesses and supply problems. The debate generated by the threat of a citizens' march divides between those who applaud the initiative and those who consider it a hollow gesture.

The demographic data that explains everything

The numbers are stubborn. That a city goes from 80,000 usual inhabitants to 130,000 in a short period does not admit sugar-coated readings. The urban infrastructure, public services and supply chain of Ceuta are sized for a much smaller population. Supporters of the march argue that only a massive presence of Spaniards from the peninsula, even if just to make up the numbers, will force a political response; skeptics see in that same idea a fairground solution.

There is a nuance that should not be lost: the quantitative is not the only problem. Those who defend the mobilization insist that the Government has abandoned the people of Ceuta to their fate. The underlying demand is not that civilians replace the State, but that the State act. Hence, among the circulating proposals, the idea of a state of siege in Ceuta and Melilla as a measure of order has reappeared, an option that has support but also enormous legal misgivings.

The 24-hour deadline and the shadow of overacting

A 24-hour ultimatum has all the air of a calculated staging. The official response, for now, has not gone beyond the announcement of some buoys at the border whose effectiveness raises more than one laugh in citizen analysis. It is enough to review the recent archives to remember that other similar political gestures came to nothing: some maintain that the farce deflated in three hours, and others reply that indignation is not measured with a stopwatch.

The figure of Gisbert does not help neutrality either. For some he is the only one who has said out loud what no political leader dares to pronounce; for others, a professional agitator who monetizes discontent and catastrophes. Both things can be true at the same time, and that is precisely the problem: the message is contaminated by the messenger.

Militias, weapons and lines that should not be crossed

The most uncomfortable part of the debate is the one that touches on the use of force. Among those who share the diagnosis of institutional abandonment, the option of armed militias has no serious defense: it is not legal, it would not work and its consequences would be unpredictable. That does not prevent voices from appearing demanding forceful responses at the border, including automatic weapons and a declaration of war, in a tone that mixes frustration with impotence.

Far from the extremes, the majority position seems to be to demand that the State regain control with the means it already has. A legal march of citizens to a Spanish city is a right; a paramilitary patrol is not. That line is what separates a legitimate protest from a public order problem.

Ceuta and Melilla, a board that is not only Spanish

It is worth broadening the focus. In the same exchange, it has been recalled that a report by the United States Congress has gone so far as to mention Ceuta and Melilla as 'territories of Segarro', and that the son of the Israeli prime minister has suggested to 'Arabs and Jovenlandeses' that they start with those enclaves if they want to liberate occupied territories. The pressure on the autonomous cities is not a local invention: it is one more piece of a geopolitical board in which Spain accumulates decades of toothless gestures.

The economy of the area, meanwhile, continues to pay the price. With local commerce closed and supply difficulties, the cost of the crisis is not borne by governments: it is borne by the people of Ceuta. And that is, ultimately, the only certainty that survives the noise of the ultimatum.

As this chronicle closes, the 24-hour deadline is still running and no one has confirmed whether the march will become a reality. The recent history of similar gestures does not invite optimism: the farce, some say, lasted barely three hours. But the discontent that feeds it is not going to deflate with a tweet. When politics fails, the street demands; and the street usually does not understand deadlines.

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