Cuca Gamarra said Ana Vázquez's pepper spray demonstration reflected a broader security problem in Ceuta. The PP leader said the object was meant to show how women and children in the autonomous city are protecting themselves. She accused the Government of focusing on the gesture instead of the conditions that led people to carry it.
Speaking on Las Mañanas de RNE in an interview reported by Europa Press, Gamarra said the PP would keep raising the issue until the situation was resolved. Criticism of the spray, she said, lets the authorities avoid discussing what is happening in Ceuta.
RTVE reported that Congress speaker Francina Armengol treated the canister displayed by Ana Vázquez as a weapon and ordered the PP deputy to leave the chamber.
The party links its security concerns to the arrival of more than 80,000 immigrants in the city on 31 July. Several reports cite that figure, although it remains to be checked against official migration statistics. Gamarra said women and families now carry pepper spray in their handbags. Children, she said, keep it in their backpacks because they feel they must protect themselves. She presented the practice as evidence of fear, not a personal impression of insecurity.
That point lies basic to the dispute with the Government. Gamarra rejected the Interior minister's description of the problem.
