Alicante City Council Condemns Firefighters' Attempted Assault on Plenary Session: 'It Shames Us All'

On Thursday, the municipal Plenary in Alicante was tense. Around fifty firefighters gathered at the doors of the Town Hall to demand more resources and improvements at the Jaime II Avenue station. The protests moved inside the Town Hall, to the Blue Room, culminating in an attempted assault by the firefighters on the Plenary Hall, which was repelled by the Local Police.

The spokesperson for the Alicante City Council's Government team, Cristina Cutanda, expressed her 'total rejection and condemnation' of the 'violent and aggressive' behaviour of a group of firefighters 'who attempted to storm the Plenary Hall' during the regular session held on Thursday. She emphasised that there are 'multiple alternative and peaceful ways to deliver a protest letter to the mayor without resorting to such threatening and intolerable behaviour.'

'This violent attempt to assault the Plenary by a group of firefighters aimed to intimidate the Corporation by force, and it shames us all,' Cutanda reiterated. 'We witnessed how these firefighters aggressively and violently struggled with a group of local police officers, seriously intimidating and endangering the physical integrity of the municipal corporation members, the public, and everyone present at the plenary session,' the councillor added.

The local Executive's spokesperson highlighted that 'firefighters are well aware that there are different peaceful channels to submit their demands in writing to Mayor Luis Barcala' and expressed her belief that 'the majority of Alicante's firefighters are not like this; they are not this violent minority that did not hesitate to clash with the Police and assault the officers with physical and verbal violence.'