As crowded as ever, or even more – the attendees reached 110,000, according to the Urban Guard – and with an extra point of vindication of rights that many feel threatened. This is how the Pride Barcelona 2023 demonstration could be summed up, which yesterday afternoon filled Avinguda Paral·lel with color, from Tres Xemeneies park to Plaça Espanya.
Thousands of people paraded on foot or in floats along the avenue to make visible and claim more forcefully than ever the rights and freedoms of the LGTBIQ collective. They did it with a week to go before the holding of a general election in Spain that can change the political sign of the country and that, according to many of the people who demonstrated in Barcelona yesterday, can mark, with the rise and an increase in Vox’s ability to influence, a point of regression in progressive policies that have conquered new spaces of equality.
The march was attended by numerous civic organizations, businesses and night clubs, unions and left-wing and pro-independence political parties, who wanted to express their support for this group and renew their commitment to defense of their freedoms. The demonstrators marched under the slogan “The pride of our lives”: this year’s mobilization was especially dedicated to elderly LGTBIQ people.
At the head of the demonstration was the mayor Jaume Collboni, who said that “this year, with more reason than ever, we need to claim and defend the rights that have cost us so much to achieve”. In fact, due to the current political situation, the organizers of the march and the parties that participated agree to point out the “exceptionality” of the day at a time that they also describe as “exceptional”. “The Arc de Sant Martí flag will never return to the closets,” said the mayor.
Nor did several candidates from the general elections miss the appointment, such as Meritxell Batet (PSC), Gabriel Rufián (ERC), Míriam Nogueras (Junts), Aina Vidal (Sumar) and the Minister for Equality and Feminism, Tània Verge.
In addition to the demonstration, yesterday there were activities related to Pride Barcelona 2023 in Plaça Universitat, and at night, in Avinguda Maria Cristina, where concerts by musical figures linked to the fight for rights of the collective attracted a very large audience.
At the Barcelona City Council, and ignoring the request of the Vox municipal group, the Arc de Sant Martí flag was flown from very early in the morning and throughout the day. The far-right formation had argued that the aforementioned banner “lacks valid legal recognition as an official symbol in any territorial administration” and that it has a “partial and electoralist bias, therefore, associated with a part of the citizens identified with the aforementioned flag unofficial, it is not representative of the majority of citizens who do not belong to this group or do not align with the aforementioned option”.
The municipal government, through the Commissioner for the Promotion of Childhood, Adolescence, Youth and LGTBIQ, Javier Rodríguez, reiterated the character of Barcelona as “an open and proud city at a time when rights are beginning to be in doubt”.
