Editorial: Pedro Sánchez Cornered

Pedro Sánchez’s opponents have found new momentum in the mass arrival of migrants in Ceuta, the Spanish autonomous city on Africa’s northern coast. The episode has revived efforts by local and foreign adversaries to remove the prime minister and bring eight years of progressive government to an end.

Madrid has returned 93 percent of the 72,000 people who entered the enclave by land and sea, the article says. Despite that figure, Spain’s right continues to frame the humanitarian crisis as a matter of national security. It speaks of an “invasion” and accuses Sánchez of treason over alleged complicity that, the editorial argues, is actually respect for international law and the right to asylum.

The article sharply rejects that framing. It says many residents of Ceuta, along with some people on the Spanish mainland, have taken the worst forms of xenophobia into the streets. In doing so, they have shown what the editorial calls a shameful contempt for the lives of people they regard as different.