Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has been booed and insulted by part of the crowd at the national day military parade in Madrid, while King Felipe VI, Queen Letizia and their two daughters have been met with applause and shouts in support of the monarch.
Sánchez arrived at the Plaza de Cánovas del Castillo shortly before 11am on October 12 and stayed inside his official car for about three minutes before getting out. The jeering continued as he greeted guests alongside Defence Minister Margarita Robles and the chief of the defence staff, Admiral Teodoro López Calderón.
The reception came seven weeks before the general election of November 29, which Sánchez called on October 5 after Congress rejected two housing decrees. Polls published since the announcement have given the People’s Party (PP) and Vox a combined majority.
Isabel Díaz Ayuso, president of the Madrid region, said this would be the last parade Sánchez presided over as Prime Minister. PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijoo took his place in the stand reserved for officials.
Vox leader Santiago Abascal stayed away for the second year running and travelled to Ceuta instead, where he appeared with Jordan Bardella of France’s National Rally. He had said beforehand that he would not share a platform with a government he accuses of betraying Spain.
The parade brought together 4,380 participants, 144 vehicles, 39 motorcycles, 286 horses and five dogs, with 50 fixed-wing aircraft and 32 helicopters taking part in the fly-past. Four Eurofighters of the Ala 14 wing drew the red and yellow of the national flag over the capital before the march ended shortly after 12.30pm.
Felipe VI wore the dress uniform of the air and space force and Princess Leonor, the heir to the throne, that of an army second lieutenant. A corporal descended by parachute over the city carrying a flag of 24 square metres.
At the reception that followed in the Royal Palace, the King and Queen had invited representatives of civil society from Ceuta and Melilla, two days before the first visit by a Spanish monarch to the two cities in almost 19 years, on October 13 and 14.
The invitation followed the invasion of Ceuta on July 30, when tens of thousands of people crossed into the Spanish city from Morocco. During the salute, Felipe VI stopped for longer than usual to speak with the president of Ceuta, Juan Jesús Vivas, who attended the reception along with his Melilla counterpart, Juan José Imbroda.
Ceuta has shadowed Spanish politics ever since, and immigration is expected to weigh on the campaign. Sánchez attacked the King over the city at the start of September, hours before the two men were due to meet.
