On October 24, 2026, around 500 to 600 mostly young, hooded protesters gathered in Barcelona's Plaça de Catalunya for an unpermitted "anti-system" rally, reportedly inspired by student actions in France. By the end of the night, 14 shops had been looted, more than 30 fires had been set, and about 100 people had been arrested, roughly a quarter of them minors. Video from the scene shows crowds in the streets, people running, and fires burning on barricades and street items. Many people are now asking who organized the rally and how it got out of control so quickly.

Online, some posts are calling the chaos "inevitable" and blaming Spain's migration levels, but the reported details don't support that link. Spain's population reached about 49.8 million by mid-2026, including 10.29 million foreign-born residents, or 20.7%, mostly from Latin America and Morocco, and that figure includes people who have since become citizens. Nothing in the reports describes the rally as being about migration, and it was described as an anti-system protest by mostly young people. Barcelona also saw barricades and fires earlier this month, after a large housing protest on October 5. Until police release more information about who was arrested and why, the cause of the violence is still an open question.