“Fear, sadness, the desire to cry” faced with the disaster caused by the deadly floods that occurred in eastern Spain were quickly joined by “incomprehension and rage” of the population, underlines El Periódico de Catalunya, center-left newspaper. As the number of deaths caused by the terrible dana (isolated depression at high levels, “cold drop”, in French) of October 29 increases, indignation also takes hold of the editorial staff, starting with that of the conservative daily ABC, for whom political leaders demonstrate a “total incompetence to help those affected”.
The ire of the population erupted against the authorities on November 3, when a procession formed by the royal couple – Felipe VI and Letizia of Spain –, the socialist Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, and the conservative president of the region from Valencia, Carlos Mázon, was badly heckled during a visit to Paiporta, the epicenter of the floods, in the suburbs of Valencia.
“The king and queen spoke to the inhabitants of the town to try to calm things down,” “very heated”. The inhabitants “felt abandoned, having found themselves without resources, for five days, surrounded by mud, thirsty and hungry”, noted respectively the Valencian daily The Provinces and the Catalan newspaper The Vanguard.
The screams “Assassins”, “Mázon, resignation” et “Pedro Sánchez, fils de pute” swept over the procession, just like the jets of mud and projectiles, continues The Provinces, while The Vanguard suspected “far-right agitators, who are the subject of an investigation by the national police”, to have taken advantage of the context to infiltrate among the revolting crowd.
The surreal sequence could have “end in tragedy”, estimates the centrist newspaper. Above all, it symbolizes the discredit into which institutions have fallen among the Spanish population during this crisis. While images of the altercations were circulating in the international media, “we concluded that this visit […] was not a good idea”, comments The Vanguard.
A “dramatic management”
Carlos Mazón, and to a lesser extent Pedro Sánchez, crystallize the anger born from “drama management” of the disaster, according to the conservative newspaper The World. The first has held the head of the Valencia region since the summer of 2023, which he led for a few months with the support of the far-right party Vox, before the latter distanced itself.
“The disaster of October 29 placed Mázon before the greatest test ever faced by a regional autonomous government in Spain,” develops Madrid's daily life. But, for the moment, the Valencian president seems to be “overwhelmed by the circumstances and the action of his government, both with regard to the delay in alerting the population, despite the warnings of Aemet [l’agence météorologique espagnole]as regards relief activities”.
Leaders “must take responsibility”
Sánchez, for his part, is facing criticism from part of the press and the political landscape, on the left and the right, in particular for not having declared a state of emergency, as during the Covid-19 pandemic. In a very decentralized Spain, in which the regions have exclusive powers in terms of managing civil protection on their territory, this decision would have implied that its administration took over from the region to pilot the management of the crisis.
But no matter who does what, “take action!” exclaims The Newspaper. Car, “meanwhile, in certain flooded areas, the mayors, the last representatives of the administration, are organizing and supporting the residents. The media and volunteers, who arrived before official help, noticed this,” underlines the center-left newspaper, before concluding:
“These leaders incapable of communicating, of organizing, of warning, of taking people’s lives seriously must assume their responsibilities.”
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