Rioters stormed the barricades outside the presidential palace in Mexico City as an anti-cartel protest descended into chaos.
Mobs of frustrated, mostly Gen Z Mexican protestors traded blows with cops and screamed slogans about how corruption and cartel killings have spiraled out of control in their country.
Thousands of people filled the streets of the nation’s capital and marched to the palace, which is the official residence of President Claudia Sheinbaum, the progressive politician who took office last October.
The demonstration, largely organized by young activists and supported by older supporters of opposition movements, was the culmination of citizens’ frustration with the government’s inability to stop violence and provide economic opportunity.
Protestors, many of whom were calling for Sheinbaum’s resignation, were seen trying to breach police barricades around the palace.
Authorities responded by shooting tear gas out into the crowd, causing people to run in all different directions.
Clashes between citizens and police lasted for hours, but eventually order was returned to the area around the palace.
Pablo Vazquez, Mexico City’s chief of police, said 20 people were arrested and are set to be charged with battery, assault and robbery, Bloomberg reported.
Vazquez added that 60 of his officers were injured, 40 of whom had to be sent to the hospital for treatment.
Mexico City police are seen fighting with protestors outside the National Palace on Saturday after thousands of people flocked to the official residence of the president to demand her resignation
Outrage over the November 1 assassination of Carlos Manzo, the mayor of a crime-ridden town in western Mexico, was on the mind of most people who joined the protest.
Many could be seen wearing straw hats that symbolize his political movement, which is vigorously focused on having a zero-tolerance policy for organized crime.
‘The state is dying,’ said Rosa Maria Avila, a 65-year-old real estate agent who traveled from the town of Patzcuaro in Michoacan state.
‘He was killed because he was a man who was sending officers into the mountains to fight delinquents. He had the guts to confront them,’ she said of Manzo.
Saturday was the biggest protest against Sheinbaum to date. She has responded to demonstrations throughout the week by accusing right-wing groups of being behind the escalating shows of discontent.
The protest against Sheinbaum and her Morena party, which Manzo splintered off from in 2024, resembled other Gen Z-led movements like the ones in Nepal and Madagascar, countries where the governments were toppled.
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“We want a better country”: testimonies that marked the march of the Hat Movement and Generation Z
Thousands of people from the capital and from some other states took to the streets to protest the injustice they are experiencing, to participate in the march of the Hat Movement , which joined with other mobilizations that took place on Saturday of the Buen Fin in the city , starting from the Angel of Independence and heading to the Zócalo infiltrated , where groups of violent young people and tried to knock down the fences protecting the National Palace and threw firecrackers, with police officers repelling that attitude with tear gas.
As the situation got out of control in the main square of the Historic Center , specifically in the Zócalo plaza surrounded by the Metropolitan Cathedral and federal and local government buildings, protected by fences, police officers began to repel the people who gathered and threw firecrackers.
It was before 3:30 p.m. when riot police began to push people aside, as they arrived in a peaceful march that ended with aggression.
Hat Movement
Reforma, Juárez and Eje Central avenues , as well as 5 de Mayo street, were silent witnesses to the passage of people wearing hats, with the grandmother of Carlos Manzo, the municipal president of Uruapan, Michoacán, who was murdered at the beginning of the month, leading a contingent in a wheelchair.
with a notable absence of social and political leaders Contrary to expectations, the march took place , accompanied continuously by members of the Secretariat of Citizen Security (SSC) and the Dialogue and Coexistence group of the Secretariat of Government.
The streets were taken over by members of that movement, mostly people between 30 and 60 years old and older adults who endured the march, summoned through social media and the community itself, but some clarified that they came of their own volition, to protest the critical security situation and in support of the activism led by Carlos Manzo, and not because of any directives or quotas from groups.
The slogans chanted as the contingents of the demonstrations called for Saturday passed by were strong, and they came together, without fear of the presence of the riot police, with a lady named Patricia González who said that “Manzo’s death hurt me because he was a born leader who spoke the truth and confronted the system, without fear of repression or death.”
Without slowing down on her way to the Zócalo, she clarified that she was not being bussed in and decided to take to the streets for her grandchildren, so that the situation would change for their benefit, and also to demonstrate that there is freedom of expression in the nation’s capital , no matter how much the government wants to minimize the people’s decision to take to the streets.
“We are not bots,” “no more unresolved cases,” “Claudia out,” “not one step back,” “repressive government,” were some of the slogans, others with strong words, shouted by the participants, an action that was combined with the singing of the National Anthem and the prayer of a group of nuns who joined the march to ask for an end to the violence throughout the country.
Once at the march, the participants didn’t care if they mingled with the Hat Movement or Generation Z, because the goal was to unite to protest, while street vendors made a killing offering hats for 80 pesos and Mexican flags for 30, as well as water bottles for 15 and 20 pesos, among other products that brought them a good profit.
“My will summons me”
People with specific causes joined the march from the Independence Column to the Zócalo, such as the searchers, as is the case of Mrs. Trinidad who came with her family to display a banner with the photo of Efrén Manuel Castro, her son, whom they have been searching for for a month and who disappeared in the capital city.
The man, who identified himself as Jaime, said in an interview that did not allow video recording, “I am driven by my own will because we are fed up with this government that only deceives and does not provide solutions to the problems; we want the authorities to change not only in the city but throughout the country, because they do not know how to act to regain the people’s trust so that they can go out into the streets without fear to carry out their activities.”
From the port of Veracruz arrived with a group of friends , Yared Zaragoza to demand that Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo resign as president because she solves nothing and, in addition, covers up for bad rulers, such as the governor of the state of Veracruz, Rocío Nahle García, whom she described as arrogant and repressive.
When asked what she expected from the mobilization in which she participated, she stated that “our voice would be heard, that we are not satisfied with the government and the management that Morena is carrying out ; we are here representing the state of Veracruz and we are against both the state and federal governments, because they did not know how to respond to the natural disaster we faced, they abandoned the people and, above all, they did not warn us that there was going to be such a strong flood and, with all the technology that exists now, they could have prevented many deaths.”
Luis Antonio Alor attended of his own free will, without anyone summoning him to the march along with his family, and told LA PRENSA that “we are here protesting, expressing our discontent to all the politicians who have led Mexico to decline through their poor management of the country.”
Regarding the march, he stated that he hopes everyone will become aware of their Mexican identity and not vote for a handout or because they were given something, but so that everyone is doing well as a country.
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