In broad daylight and on the city promenade, in September 2023, several young people threw tables and chairs at each other in a pitched battle that ended up being a kind of turning point in Manresa. That episode caused several residents to take to the streets to demand that the municipal government, headed by the republican Marc Aloy, take measures against "insecurity" in the street. That demonstration, however, was already born divided, and some groups directly distanced themselves from it so as not to link insecurity with immigration. This is, in fact, the fragile balance in which Manresa, a city of 80,000 inhabitants with almost 22% of people from outside, has been moving for some years.
A poster hanging next to Ateneu Popular La Sèquia, near Manresa City Hall.XAVIER BERTRALA street in Manresa's Old Town photographed just this week.XAVIER BERTRAL
Since then, the municipal government, made up of ERC, the PSC, and Impulsem Manresa –the PDECat brand–, has launched several measures to improve street safety: police numbers were increased and security cameras were installed. The Table for Security, Civility, and Coexistence was also promoted, to address this issue transversally with municipal groups and Manresa's associative fabric. According to government data, by October 2025, robberies with violence or intimidation had been reduced by 40% and property occupations by 30%.
Together for next year's municipal electionsPerramon led the list of the far-right party Front Nacional in 2023, but has distanced himself from it for a few months and has created Avenç Nacionalista, a formation that has allied with Junts for next year's municipal elections. The two formations have also focused on limiting the registry of residents and remodeling social services. Bacardit proposes a "single register of aid" to avoid "duplication of aid and also fraud." Perramon denounces the "saturation" of these services: "People with medium incomes are leaving the city, and people with low incomes are staying. It is a vicious circle that could lead to Manresa collapsing and eventually becoming a subsidized city".
A couple walking through the Old Town of Manresa.XAVIER BERTRALQueue at the Citizen Service Office this week in Manresa.XAVIER BERTRAL
From the other end, the CUP neither understands the municipal government's policies nor what Bacardit and Perramon propose. "The security measures are very visible and immediate. But the causes of the problem are still there," says councilwoman Roser Alegre. Her recipe aims to go to "the root of the problem" and apply social policies "that reverse the cause of inequality".
Situations of vulnerability are also visualized in terms of housing. The diagnosis is almost common: the degradation of the Old Town, with more than 7,000 empty apartments, according to data from the PAHC of Bages. To confront this, the municipal government will invest 25 million from the Neighborhood Plan, and has also planned 120 official protection apartments. The PAHC, moreover, calls for a halt to the increase in evictions: according to municipal government data, at least one occurs every day.
Against school segregation
On Tuesday they organized the demonstration to condemn "With such a large arrival of migrated people in recent years, the important thing is cohesion, which is gained at school, with sports, with culture," defends Aloy. He recalls that the council has increased the number of grants for sports entities, as well as measures to reverse the decline in the social use of Catalan with initiatives to teach the language to merchants who do not speak it, given the increase in establishments run by newcomers.
The anti-racist race
Manresa is the only city where the National Front ran – it plans to do so again in 2027 – and obtained two councilors. It is still unknown if Aliança will do so, which sounded out Perramon to be its candidate. In the last Catalan elections, Aliança and Vox obtained 16% of the votes, and for the left-wing associative fabric of the city this has been a warning sign. A year ago, the entity Mai Més was constituted as an "anti-fascist" tool. They organized, for example, the first anti-racist race, and their objective is to talk with the entire social fabric of Manresa to counteract racist and xenophobic discourses.
La Baixada dels Drets, a central point in the Barri Antic of the capital of Bages, where last Sunday there was a racist attack, with two people arrested for assaulting and insulting Muslim women in the middle of the street.XAVIER BERTRAL
On Tuesday, they organized the demonstration to condemn the racist attack on Sunday, in which a man and a woman assaulted a group of Muslim women with racist insults. In Thursday's plenary session, all groups except Vox signed an institutional declaration condemning the events and denouncing the "link" between "the rise of certain racist slogans and physical violence in the street". These events, however, have brought to light the tension between Mai Més and the Bacardit-Perramon tandem: the entity sees a "link" between their speeches and "violence in the street", and they denounce "political finger-pointing" while condemning any racist attack.
![A poster hanging next to Ateneu Popular La Sèquia, near Manresa City Hall.](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 1 1"%3E%3C/svg%3E)
![La Baixada dels Drets, a central point in the Barri Antic of the capital of Bages, where last Sunday there was a racist attack, with two people arrested for assaulting and insulting Muslim women in the middle of the street.](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 6000 4000"%3E%3C/svg%3E)
