The decision was announced last week by the Mayor of Hendaia, Kotte Ecenarro, through a joint statement. He argued that “anti-immigrant behaviors have intensified in recent months.” This Tuesday, for his part, Jean-Francois Irigoyen, mayor of San Juan de Luz, announced that he will arm the local police: “Today has unfortunately shown that municipal agents are exposed to insecurity and crime,” the decision has justified.

The officers of the Angelu, Baiona, Biarritz, Ziburu and Urruña Municipal Police have already been armed.

“Statistics do not justify”

The controversial decision taken at the plenary session of the Hendaia council last week has raised a great scandal, as Kazeta has reported. From the Hendaia group in commun, they have stressed that current statistics do not justify the weaponry of the Municipal Police and that “the feeling of insecurity is a continuous media treatment”.

The Hendaia Biltzen group has also strongly denounced the measure that “will in no way solve security problems”. Instead of earmarking money for weapons, it would be more useful to invest in “prevention, conflict management, support for people with difficulties and education”, they added, questioning the proper training of agents to carry those weapons: It is about “risking citizens and our workers”. With this measure, they have reproached the municipal government for proposing "repression" of the current situation.