On Saturday, Barcelona police fortified the Plaza de España to prevent incidents like the one that occurred the night before, when a massive brawl involving 40,000 young people led to acts of vandalism and aggression.
As a result of this incident, 22 people were arrested and about 40 were injured, 13 of them were stabbed.
These incidents took place on the second night of the “macrobotellón”, as part of the celebration of Mercè, a festival held in honor of Mare de Deu de la Merce, the patron saint of Barcelona.
The festival, which was first officially held in 1902, marks the farewell of summer and welcomes autumn.
The acts of vandalism and aggression committed the night before have already prompted Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau to ask Mossos d’Esquadra to carry out a preventive operation in a situation that, according to the city council, emerged from the problem of impoliteness to the problem of “public order”.
Together with Guarda Urbana Mosso, they have developed a new Saturday night plan that includes more elements – both plain and uniformed – as well as access control and perimeter closures, as the agglomerations of the last days are expected to recur.
On Thursday evening, the night before La Mercè, about 15,000 people gathered on Avenue Maria Cristina in Barcelona and Plaza de España to drink and listen to music, without any noticeable incidents and without police intervention to eliminate them.
On Friday night, the Macrobotelion in the area drew more than twice as many people, including the groups that defeated and invaded the Palace of Congress, threw glass bottles at the City Guard officers who had arrived to protect the building, prompting Mossos to intervene.
For its part, the Catalan nightclub employers’ association on Saturday called on Catalan institutions to “come together in action” to end the widespread proliferation of botellons in recent months and warned it was “urgent.” reopen nightclubs for the entertainment of young people.
