Two months after the spectacular invasion of the small Spanish city of Ceuta (67,000 inhabitants) by 100,000 young migrants, mostly Moroccan, nothing has been resolved. Neither on site, nor in Spain, nor in Europe despite the seriousness of this event. In Ceuta itself, although the majority of migrants have returned to Morocco, there are still 10,000 Moroccans and sub-Saharans remaining in the enclave, a third of whom are minors, who are camping there in extremely precarious conditions. Ceuta is part of Schengen, but entry into Spain itself is subject to authorizations which these migrants do not have, or not yet… As for unaccompanied minors, Schengen prohibits their expulsion.
Faced every day with this impasse, the population of Ceuta can no longer take it and are demonstrating massively against the Sanchez government. Throughout Spain, hundreds of thousands of people also demonstrated against the President of the Council. The matter is so sensitive that it has spilled over onto football fields, with players being asked to wear a jersey in solidarity with the population of Ceuta. Real Madrid star Kylian Mbappé was violently accused, as well as other players of Moroccan origin, for having balked or refused to comply with this gesture wanted by the Spanish Football Federation…
Sanchez himself, surrounded by multiple corruption cases involving his immediate entourage, including his wife, clings to the strong power of support from nationalists and other Basque and Catalan separatists to whom he literally sold the sovereignty of Spain. Nothing is settled in Europe either.
The mayor of Ceuta, Juan Jesus Vivas, came to Brussels to plead for his city “on the verge of collapse” and ask “the permanent presence of the Union, notably via the agency Frontex »returned without the slightest response. Twenty years after its creation, Frontex remains only the very modest embryo of a real border and coast guard force. Its budget of 1.1 billion euros in 2026 pales in comparison to the 200 billion dollars spent in the United States on immigration police (ICE) and border police (CBP) respectively.
Fortunately, the idea is gradually gaining ground, in particular, of expelling undocumented immigrants who have entered the Schengen zone to third countries. Meloni, who opened the way with Albania, immediately mobilized in the Ceuta affair with her Danish colleague, the socialist (!) Mette Frederiksen. Both brought together twenty Member States (without France of course!) to demand determined action against immigration from the Commission: “We are proud of Europe’s Christian heritage and we want to protect it. We expect those who come to settle in our countries to respect our values and not seek to impose their way of life on us, which we do not share. »
Emmanuel Macron, for his part, chose to comfort his Spanish socialist friend. To thank him for having regularized a million undocumented migrants, many of whom will come to taste the charms of the French welfare state on the other side of the Pyrenees, Macron has just announced a state visit to Madrid next week… As for the migratory weapon wielded once again brilliantly by Morocco, no one is talking about it…
