Today's fallera event is in Madrid, but it will also be a political event. After a week of bickering on social media over the mascletà that the Madrid court - and the Government Delegation - put an end to on Friday with its authorization, today the main Valencian authorities arrive in the capital to support an initiative defended and criticized in equal parts.
The first official event is the reception offered, at half past eleven in the morning, by the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, at the City Hall. The president of the Generalitat Valenciana, Carlos Mazón, will participate; the mayor of València, María José Catalá, and the Falleras Mayores of València, María Estela Arlandis and Marina García. There will also be their Courts of Honor, a total of 12 older falleras and another 12 children who will dress in Valencian clothing in the Plaza de Cibeles in Madrid. And along with all of them, her companions.
And an hour and a half later, the Fallas and political procession will move to the Puente del Rey to witness the mascletà, a Valencian Pyrotechnic shot in which it is expected to have local spectators, but also many Valencians. In fact, the Valencia City Council has made recommendations "given the great expectation that has been generated and the number of Valencians who will travel to enjoy this unprecedented event in the capital of Spain," they point out. That is why they suggest those who arrive at the Chamartín station, the terminus of the València AVE, to take the metro to the mascletà.
There will also be a media landing, as the Valencian regional television À Punt will broadcast the shot and the preview live, with regular commentators from the Valencia mascletaes such as the pyrotechnician Reyes Martí, or the Valencian journalist based in Madrid, Ana Cuesta. The network will share the signal with Telemadrid, which will also broadcast it live in a special program.
It is not ruled out that there will be some protest either. Yesterday there were about 200 people according to sources from the Madrid Municipal Police, and 400 according to the Government Delegation, who protested in Plaza Cibeles called by Anima Naturalis to protest "its consequences" on the fauna and flora of the environment, according to EFE.
Raising yellow signs into the air that read "No pyrotechnics", attendees denounced the celebration of the event with slogans such as "Almeida, Madrid is not silent", "Less noise and more empathy" or "No to mascletà". The actress Nathalie Poza, the actor Alfonso Bassave and the artist Alex de la Croix accompanied them.
The socialist spokesperson for the Madrid City Council, Reyes Maroto, also attended the rally, denouncing that "Madrid does not have to pay for the Popular Party's party for having won the elections in Valencia." Maroto, who recalled that "the chosen place is a protected environment where many species of birds are nesting", once again attacked the mayor of Valencia for having called the opponents of the mascletà "catetos": "We are not cacti, we are people who wants to work for a better Madrid, for a green Madrid and a social Madrid," answered the former socialist minister.
Rita Maestre, whose first comment on social networks fueled the controversy a week ago, also criticized the mascletà yesterday by saying that “this botched job, which cannot be placed in an environmentally protected space like Madrid Río, has to be stopped.”
His statements were already criticized last week by the Valencia City Council, which on Friday addressed the controversy again by approving a motion in which "the maximum support for the celebration of the mascletà in Madrid Río is expressed, as it is a fundamental part for UNESCO will declare the Fallas as Intangible Heritage of Humanity.”
The former Valencian politician Toni Cantó had joined the controversy on Friday, who in an intervention on Antena 3 defended the holding of the event, stating that "human beings and animals are prepared to endure stress and it is okay to go through a moment of stress".
