▲ The objective was to hit the police to make them respond and thus create the idea that young people are repressed in Mexico, President Claudia Sheinbaum said yesterday morning.Photo Cristina Rodríguez
Néstor Jiménez and Emir Olivares
La Jornada Newspaper
Tuesday, November 18, 2025, p. 5
Faced with the events of the previous Saturday, when a march supposedly organized by young people belonging to the so-called generation Z ended in violent acts in the capital’s Zócalo, President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo maintained: “we are never going to give up here,” and stated that, contrary to the essence of the call, “few young people” participated.
Instead, he said, “many adults” attended, including members of the right and the so-called pink tidewho together with businessman Ricardo Salinas Pliego fueled that protest. He highlighted that unlike 2023, when this group had a greater attendance, this time they occupied less than half of the Zócalo.
“Now, they believe that by linking up with international right-wing organizations they are going to stop the transformation; they are not going to stop it. The majority of the people and young people of Mexico are with the transformation,” the president highlighted in her morning press conference, where she spent much of the time talking about this issue. In addition, he rejected that the federal or capital governments have repressed young people.
He assured that the objective was to hit the police officers so that they “responded”, and thus “create this idea that ‘in Mexico there is repression of young people’. And no, there is no repression.” Without elaborating on the accusations of abuse by security elements, about which he was asked in the morning, he said that the police should investigate whether any element “broke discipline.”
Regarding Salinas Pliego, the President stated that “he was promoting the mobilization and writing against us; instigating the demonstration.”
He recalled that last week the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation resolved lawsuits related to the owner of Elektra and Tv Azteca, in which it confirmed that he must pay the millionaire tax debts that he has pending with the Treasury. He pointed out that these are disputes that began in 2008, and that “no one is above the law.”
Meanwhile, he asked to show a video of the moment when people who were demonstrating on Saturday pulled a police officer and began to hit him. He asked why after that a campaign arose that was replicated on social media accounts to assert that the government is repressive.
And in response to the slogans against the 4T governments, she emphatically expressed: “Do you think they are going to weaken us? That they are going to weaken the President because of what they shout? No! I am stronger, stronger. Do you think that those screams, lepers, are going to do something to me? No. Here we are strong with the people, strong, very strong!
“Of course, there will be people who don’t like me; well, nothing happens, right?, but we are dedicated to working and with the strength that the people give us. Here we are never going to give up. It is the people, the people, the people and the people.”
The head of the federal Executive recalled that since last Thursday it was revealed that, although the idea was promoted that it was young people who planned the mobilization, “in reality there was an impulse of close to 90 million pesos from the opposition, on the one hand, and also with the support of a businessman. Many accounts, even from abroad, that promoted it.”
What was observed, he insisted, were “well-known faces of those who called the call.” pink tide; There were intellectuals, or there were politicians, well we already know them: Acosta Naranjo, Belaunzarán; Many from the PAN who said they were going to go did not arrive at the time, but they promoted the demonstration.”
Some of those who came, he indicated, were “very prepared” with grinders, lockpicks, hammers and clubs to break the fences. He explained that he asked the Attorney General of Mexico City to investigate who these groups are. “Why this violence? Are they paid?”
He also urged that all protests be peaceful, and that his government will not fall into provocations. “Mexicans do not want violence. Well, a supposed march that calls against violence and uses it. They should not fall into provocation, because what they are looking for are images of repression,” he stressed.
