Almost all of the 60,000 migrants who crossed from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta between Thursday, July 30 and Friday, July 31 have since turned back, the Spanish government said Monday, August 3. The scale of the crossing has drawn swift criticism from far-right leaders across Europe, who have used the episode for political gain.
In France, National Rally figures Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella were among those who commented on the images from Ceuta almost as soon as they emerged, according to France Info. Le Pen denounced what she called madness, while Bardella described a coordinated migrant invasion of European territory.
On social media platform X, Bardella wrote that 49,000 migrants entered Ceuta in a single day, in a city of 82,000 residents, and that the city's population rose by 60 percent in one day, exclusively because of an influx of undocumented migrants violating Spain's borders. He called it an unprecedented submersion.
Political scientist Jean-Yves Camus, director of the Observatory of Political Radicalism at the Fondation Jean-Jaures, told La Depeche du Midi that the far right's use of current events for its own ends is a common phenomenon. He noted that this time, it was worth pointing out that the far right was not spreading a fabricated fake news story.
Role of social media in the surge
Social media played a major role in triggering the wave of migration, according to the report. At issue was a decision by Spain's Supreme Court on the right to asylum. Rumors that spread widely online claimed the ruling forced the Spanish government to accept migrants arriving by sea. In fact, the ruling only barred authorities from sending them back to Morocco, a distinction the source says was widely misinterpreted.
Camus said the far right was now looking for someone to blame. Some representatives have criticized the Supreme Court's decision, while others have described it as an act of hybrid warfare by Morocco intended to destabilize Spain, which Camus said some see as a kind of response to prior disputes, particularly over Western Sahara.
A rare but exaggerated event
Camus stressed that the event itself was unusual in scale, since Europe rarely faces migration waves of this size, which he said has given the far right ammunition. He said that while the movement itself raises real questions, anti-immigration movements have also exaggerated the figures involved. He added that some far-right representatives have cited an implausible influx of 100,000 people in order to amplify the reality.
The far right has kept alive the idea of migrant submersion, the source reports, and has tried to make a potential invasion feel tangible, a term also used by US President Donald Trump when he criticized Spain's handling of the situation.
Political backdrop in Spain
The Ceuta crisis comes after the Spanish government decreed the regularization of 500,000 undocumented foreigners, most of them from Morocco or sub-Saharan Africa, according to the report.
At the same time, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's party is caught up in several corruption scandals. The source notes this could damage Sanchez as the far-right party Vox positions itself ahead of Spain's next general election, scheduled for August 2027.
