Spain’s interior minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, ordered an investigation on Thursday into police conduct during Wednesday’s general strike and banned the use of tear gas to control demonstrations.
Trade unions announced legal action over what they described as excessive force, while figures on the left, including within the governing coalition, called for the minister to resign. ALSO READ: Tens of thousands march for affordable housing and higher wages in Spain’s first general strike in 14 years.
The Interior Ministry said Grande-Marlaska had instructed the Directorate-General of Police to open specific investigations into incidents during the 11 November strike. These will run separately from the National Police’s routine internal review of whether its operations complied with existing rules. The ministry’s announcement did not specify which incidents the investigations would cover or whether they could lead to disciplinary action.
The new order explicitly covers tear gas. Whether it also applies to the pepper sprays used by police units remained unclear on Thursday. The Unified Police Union (SUP) told RTVE it would seek clarification from the ministry.
The union said the use of pepper spray was tightly regulated and defended Wednesday’s police response as lawful and proportionate. Rubber bullets are already restricted to exceptional cases that must be justified and authorised by police commanders.
Unions threaten legal action over police charges
Complaints about police conduct began during the overnight and early-morning pickets. At Mercamadrid, the capital’s wholesale food market, the CCOO trade union said 13 people were injured when police intervened at an information picket. It announced legal action over what it considered a disproportionate use of force. There were also complaints about police interventions at Madrid’s municipal bus depots.
CCOO general secretary Unai Sordo said officers had sprayed pepper spray directly into picketers’ faces. ‘Some of the episodes of police violence we have experienced are unprecedented in the history of Spain,’ he said.
The UGT union’s general secretary Pepe Álvarez called the police conduct ‘an unacceptable act in a democratic country’ and said it infringed the fundamental right to strike.
Alicia del Río, a spokesperson for the Tenants’ Union, said the policing of the strike reflected an escalation in the treatment of housing activists. She cited previous incidents during evictions and at a protest encampment.
In central Madrid, RTVE reported that police used pepper spray, tear gas and rubber bullets during interventions around the midday picket and at the end of the evening march. Officers cut off Gran Vía and split up demonstrators. RNE journalist Graciela García said a smoke canister had been deployed a metre from her face and that she would file a legal complaint.
‘It’s hard to believe that the security forces, who are supposed to protect the public, put my life and the lives of many people in danger, with a smoke canister a metre from my face,’ she told Las Mañanas de RNE. ‘It was an outright provocation. When have you ever seen the police cut off an organised, lawful demonstration?’
Clashes in Madrid and Barcelona as arrest total reaches 115
After the Madrid march ended, people threw stones and other objects, set rubbish bins on fire and damaged shop windows around Gran Vía and Plaza de España, according to local media reports. Police used tear gas to disperse groups involved in the disturbances. Four people were arrested in those clashes and police reported nine injuries.
In Barcelona, groups of hooded individuals smashed shop windows on Passeig de Gràcia, set bins alight and threw fireworks at officers of the Mossos d’Esquadra, the regional Catalan police, around Plaça de Catalunya. The Mossos then charged into the crowd.
Catalonia’s interior minister, Núria Parlon, later reported 52 arrests across the region and said 36 Mossos officers had been injured. She said police had seized high-powered fireworks, improvised devices and petrol bombs. Most of the arrests were linked to alleged offences including assault, public disorder and theft.
The Interior Ministry’s provisional tally, compiled at 11pm on Wednesday, recorded 1,144 strike-related incidents and 47 arrests by the National Police and Guardia Civil. Madrid accounted for 20 arrests, followed by Valencia with six, Málaga and Almería with four each, Granada and Castellón with three each, and Zamora with two. There was one arrest each in Navarre, Valladolid, La Rioja, Alicante and A Coruña.
The ministry’s figures excluded Catalonia and the Basque Country, where regional police were in action. The 52 arrests in Catalonia and 16 in the Basque Country brought the reported total across Spain to 115.
Coalition figures call for Marlaska to go
The row has exposed divisions within the governing coalition during the campaign for the 29 November general election.
Emilio Delgado, who heads the Frente Amplio list in Madrid, called for Grande-Marlaska to be dismissed, telling Cadena SER that Spain had ‘a problem with riot police’. He accused officers of treating neo-Nazi gatherings more leniently than other demonstrations and pointed to criticism from Amnesty International. ALSO READ: A Coruña sees renewed clashes and street fires after protests over Vox rally.
Sumar’s parliamentary spokesperson, Verónica Martínez Barbero, said the minister should explain who gave the orders and take political responsibility. ‘He doesn’t represent us. He should give explanations first and resign second,’ she said. She argued that the scale of the police response pointed to decisions beyond those of individual officers.
Podemos parliamentary spokesperson Ione Belarra used a congressional debate on two housing decrees to demand Grande-Marlaska’s resignation over what she called ‘police brutality and abuse’. ALSO READ: Spanish Congress extends eviction protections after general strike but rejects indefinite rental renewals.
She said demonstrators and journalists had been struck or shoved and that police had made extensive use of pepper spray. Podemos candidate Irene Montero described the police response as ‘intolerable repression’ and urged prime minister Pedro Sánchez to remove Grande-Marlaska from the PSOE’s electoral lists. ALSO READ: Spain’s left heads into election divided as unity talks collapse.
The Esquerra Republicana (ERC) party’s Gabriel Rufián renewed his party’s call for the minister to resign, describing the use of force as excessive, particularly in Barcelona. He said the PSOE bore responsibility for the conduct of police under its government.
The police union Jupol also called for Grande-Marlaska to step down, accusing him of ‘casting suspicion on the police’ by opening the investigation and warning that withdrawing tear gas ‘could lead to more injuries’. The SUP backed an investigation while defending the officers’ conduct.
Government and PSOE back the minister
The government and the PSOE defended Grande-Marlaska’s position. The minister for the presidency and justice told RNE that his colleague’s job was secure and that police commanders would have to establish whether officers had used excessive force in specific instances. ‘I didn’t like some of the images I saw,’ he said, adding that the incidents should not overshadow a strike he described as peaceful overall.
PSOE sources told RTVE that the footage was ‘regrettable’ and ‘cannot be tolerated’. They backed the inquiry and said Grande-Marlaska had not ordered the police charges.
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📹 Un policía rocía con gas pimienta a una persona sin hogar durante la manifestación de la huelga general del 11N https://t.co/GkruVqcQe7 https://t.co/ucpCDsDHZV
— EL PAÍS (@el_pais) November 12, 2026
Sindicatos y manifestantes creen que la carga policial fue desproporcionada. Los partidos de izquierda culpan a Marlaska y piden su dimisión.
— RTVE Noticias (@rtvenoticias) November 12, 2026
🚨 #ÚLTIMAHORA | JUPOL exige nuevamente la dimisión de Fernando Grande-Marlaska y, si no dimite, su cese inmediato. No puede seguir al frente de Interior quien cuestiona las intervenciones policiales, anuncia investigaciones sobre los dispositivos desplegados durante la #HuelgaGeneral y pretende prohibir el uso de gas lacrimógeno a las unidades especializadas en orden público. Mientras guarda silencio ante el asesinato de nuestro compañero en Oviedo, sin trasladar el pésame a su familia ni desplazarse hasta allí, hoy filtra a los medios nuevas medidas contra quienes garantizan la seguridad ciudadana. Además, limitar estos medios puede obligar a los agentes a recurrir a defensas policiales, con el consiguiente riesgo de más lesiones. Lo contamos en El Tiempo Justo de Telecinco, con Joaquín Prat. ¡Marlaska debe dimitir! #JUPOL #PolicíaNacional #MarlaskaDimisión #SomosProfesiónDeRiesgo
— JUPOL (@JupolNacional) November 12, 2026
huelga general fue un éxito, gracias a todas las que lucharon por demostrar que luchar sirve. A partir de ahora tiene que caer mucha gente, el primero el ministro Marlaska por permitir la violencia y las prácticas ilegales que cometieron ayer los policías. 🎥 @IreneMontero https://t.co/sN1UBye54i
— Podemos (@PODEMOS) November 12, 2026
Esto tiene un nombre, brutalidad policial. Un objetivo, impedir el derecho a huelga. Y un responsable, Marlaska debe dimitir. Basta ya de una violencia que va siempre en la misma dirección. https://t.co/yQH0bOQR4D
— Ione Belarra (@ionebelarra) November 12, 2026
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