The looting of Barcelona (Ignacia de Pano in Vozpópuli)
Ignacia de Pano writes in Vozpópuli about Saturday's lootings in Barcelona, attributing them to young people of Maghrebi origin. She criticises leniency and the legacy of Ada Colau.
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
An article by Ignacia de Pano in Vozpópuli argues that Saturday's lootings in Barcelona were an insurrection of plunder carried out mostly by young people of Maghrebi origin, and blames the laxity of those in government and the legacy of Ada Colau. The piece provides no figures for arrests, injuries or damage.
Saturday afternoon was proceeding normally in the upper part of Barcelona. In the neighbourhoods along the upper Diagonal, groups of friends having a drink on terraces could only learn that Plaça de Catalunya had been taken over by groups of hooded youths if they checked the news on their mobile phones. That is how Ignacia de Pano describes it in an article published in **Vozpópuli** on **27 October 2026**, titled "The looting of Barcelona".
The article argues that the violence of that day was of a different kind from the usual street riots in Catalonia. According to the author, both the participants in the lootings —young people, mostly of Maghrebi origin— and the pretext they used, the supposed fight for a quality education, could perfectly well have been the protagonists of the urban battles of recent weeks in France. There were no esteladas, no families arriving from surrounding counties with their children ready to set fire to rubbish bins.
## Plunder as a method and the shadow of organisation
De Pano describes what peine as a street insurrection that is at once simple and complex. Simple, because the young people who wrecked everything in their path devoted themselves exclusively to plunder. Complex, because that plunder was, in her view, organised by masterminds about whom much remains to be discovered. The article identifies no specific individuals and offers no evidence of such an organisation.
The participants, summoned via social media and almost all first- or second-generation migrants from North Africa, according to the text, took to the streets eager to destroy the society that had taken them in. While hurling stones at shop windows, they filmed themselves stealing state-of-the-art electronics or the latest sneaker models. The author links what peine in Barcelona to what she calls the sack of Milan and the sack of France, and claims it peine in Barcelona because the rule of law has not been respected in that city for a long time.
## The legacy of Colau and the world turned upside down
The article devotes a section to **Ada Colau's** time as mayor. It argues that during those years peace of mind changed sides: squatters are far safer than property owners, and thieves safer than the citizens who suffer assaults and robberies. It claims that all the rights belong to incivil, while owners of small businesses who, for example, display their shop sign only in Spanish bear the full weight of the law.
In the author's view, the culprit is always the landlord, the tourist who leaves their money in the city and the small shopkeeper who opens the shutter every day. In her account, the rights all belong to a portion of the immigrant population, which she describes as predatory and hostile and which, in her judgement, seeks to destroy what attracted it in the first place. This is the columnist's opinion, not a verified fact.
## Violence comes free
The wave of street violence took place in Barcelona, according to De Pano, because in that city, unlike others, it comes almost free of charge. Because for decades it has been a meeting point for groups that practise street insurrection, and because it benefits from the meek acceptance of a not inconsiderable part of the population, which justifies and excuses the violence. The author uses the concept of suicidal empathy, which she attributes to the Canadian professor **Gad Saad**, and calls Barcelona its capital.
In that spiral of self-destruction, the text mentions upper-middle-class university students who, in videos that went viral on social media, advocate burning the **Sagrada Família** if doing so creates a climate of chaos that leads to revolution. De Pano recalls that hardly a church in Barcelona was not destroyed during the years of the civil war, and points out that this generation is mistaken if it believes the idea has occurred to it for the first time.
## Restoring law and order
The article closes with proposals. Simple solutions to complex problems are barely in sight, she writes, but one should start by restoring law and order, respect for private property and an end to the sometimes deranged leniency of the incivil justice system. She calls for investigating who summoned the riots and for making the participants turned thieves face the consequences of their actions. Only afterwards, she says, will there be time for analytical refinements.
The text is an opinion column, not a crime report. It includes no numbers of arrests, injuries or material damage, and cites no police or judicial sources. The claims about the nationality of the participants and the existence of organisers are not backed by data in the article. Any reader wishing to form a complete judgement should contrast them with crime reporting and official sources.
Saturday afternoon was proceeding normally in the upper part of Barcelona. In the neighbourhoods along the upper Diagonal, groups of friends having a drink on terraces could only learn that Plaça de Catalunya had been taken over by groups of hooded youths if they checked the news on their mobile phones. That is how Ignacia de Pano describes it in an article published in **Vozpópuli** on **27 October 2026**, titled "The looting of Barcelona".
The article argues that the violence of that day was of a different kind from the usual street riots in Catalonia. According to the author, both the participants in the lootings —young people, mostly of Maghrebi origin— and the pretext they used, the supposed fight for a quality education, could perfectly well have been the protagonists of the urban battles of recent weeks in France. There were no esteladas, no families arriving from surrounding counties with their children ready to set fire to rubbish bins.
## Plunder as a method and the shadow of organisation
De Pano describes what peine as a street insurrection that is at once simple and complex. Simple, because the young people who wrecked everything in their path devoted themselves exclusively to plunder. Complex, because that plunder was, in her view, organised by masterminds about whom much remains to be discovered. The article identifies no specific individuals and offers no evidence of such an organisation.
The participants, summoned via social media and almost all first- or second-generation migrants from North Africa, according to the text, took to the streets eager to destroy the society that had taken them in. While hurling stones at shop windows, they filmed themselves stealing state-of-the-art electronics or the latest sneaker models. The author links what peine in Barcelona to what she calls the sack of Milan and the sack of France, and claims it peine in Barcelona because the rule of law has not been respected in that city for a long time.
## The legacy of Colau and the world turned upside down
The article devotes a section to **Ada Colau's** time as mayor. It argues that during those years peace of mind changed sides: squatters are far safer than property owners, and thieves safer than the citizens who suffer assaults and robberies. It claims that all the rights belong to incivil, while owners of small businesses who, for example, display their shop sign only in Spanish bear the full weight of the law.
In the author's view, the culprit is always the landlord, the tourist who leaves their money in the city and the small shopkeeper who opens the shutter every day. In her account, the rights all belong to a portion of the immigrant population, which she describes as predatory and hostile and which, in her judgement, seeks to destroy what attracted it in the first place. This is the columnist's opinion, not a verified fact.
## Violence comes free
The wave of street violence took place in Barcelona, according to De Pano, because in that city, unlike others, it comes almost free of charge. Because for decades it has been a meeting point for groups that practise street insurrection, and because it benefits from the meek acceptance of a not inconsiderable part of the population, which justifies and excuses the violence. The author uses the concept of suicidal empathy, which she attributes to the Canadian professor **Gad Saad**, and calls Barcelona its capital.
In that spiral of self-destruction, the text mentions upper-middle-class university students who, in videos that went viral on social media, advocate burning the **Sagrada Família** if doing so creates a climate of chaos that leads to revolution. De Pano recalls that hardly a church in Barcelona was not destroyed during the years of the civil war, and points out that this generation is mistaken if it believes the idea has occurred to it for the first time.
## Restoring law and order
The article closes with proposals. Simple solutions to complex problems are barely in sight, she writes, but one should start by restoring law and order, respect for private property and an end to the sometimes deranged leniency of the incivil justice system. She calls for investigating who summoned the riots and for making the participants turned thieves face the consequences of their actions. Only afterwards, she says, will there be time for analytical refinements.
The text is an opinion column, not a crime report. It includes no numbers of arrests, injuries or material damage, and cites no police or judicial sources. The claims about the nationality of the participants and the existence of organisers are not backed by data in the article. Any reader wishing to form a complete judgement should contrast them with crime reporting and official sources.
Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (2 replies).
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