European right-wing figures blame the escalation in the Ceuta enclave on Spain's naturalisation policy, in what left-wing parties call opportunistic attacks.
On Thursday, thousands of migrants stormed the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, prompting Spain's Interior Ministry to declare a national emergency and mobilise troops to restore order in the autonomous city.
Leading right-to-centre figures across Europe have seized on the escalation, accusing Madrid of losing control of its border and blaming the mass illegal crossings on Spain's extraordinary regularisation of hundreds of thousands of migrants.
"Appalling situation at the Spanish border. The devastating images are the direct consequence of the pull factor of massive regularisation doubled with instrumentalisation of illegal migration," Manfred Weber, leader of the centre-right European People's Party (EPP), wrote on X.
Right-wing attacks
