This article by Montserrat Antúnez originally appeared in the November 16, 2025 edition of Sin Embargo.
Mexico City. It was a gathering of old acquaintances: men and women dressed in white and wearing Panama hats, promoters of the Pink Wave movement who supported Xóchitl Gálvez’s defeat in the 2024 elections, and former officials seeking to create a new party. The Generation Z mobilization on Saturday, November 15, where young people from Generation Z appeared only in dribs and drabs, devolved into violence in Mexico City. It brought together thousands of people critical of Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration and pitted adults opposed to Morena against young people demanding equal scrutiny of politicians from all parties.
Former Mexican President Vicente Fox. 83 years old.
The differences were clear before the march even began. In front of the Angel of Independence, on Paseo de la Reforma, a group of elderly men and women shouted at three young people who were putting on black bandanas to cover part of their faces: “Out! Out! No masked people!”
The first contingents included people who came from Michoacán, where at the beginning of the month the Mayor of Uruapan, Carlos Manzo, was murdered, a crime that opposition politicians have used not only to demand justice, but also to call for protests in different cities.
The opposition bloc has used networks of paid trolls and bots, AI-generated videos, and right-wing content creators to spread a message of widespread anger. Former PAN president Vicente Fox was among those who called for the marches.
Emilio Álvarez Icaza and Guadalupe Acosta Naranjo, from the defunct Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and who are now seeking to create a political party, also mobilized, as they have done in recent years with the so-called Pink Tide of businessman Claudio X. González.
Acosta dismissed the idea that the participation of politicians like himself would tarnish the movement that has been attributed to young people. “All Mexicans have constitutional rights,” he said, and asserted that they allowed young people to take the lead.
Like him, on November 15, Max Kaiser, a former official in the Felipe Calderón administration, and influencers with affinity to the National Action Party (PAN) such as Miguel de Samaniego García and Luis Enrique “Kike” Mireles marched; so did former PRI council candidate Edson Andrade; in Chiapas, Maximiliano Narváez, promoter of the Citizen Movement presidential campaign with Jorge Álvarez Máynez, participated.
Also participating was Arturo Herrera, who calls himself a “libertarian” and on social media shows his support for Ricardo Salinas Pliego, the businessman who, enraged because the Supreme Court recently ordered him to pay millions of pesos in taxes, this Saturday called the Chief Executive a “narco-president” from his X account.
The demand for public officials to sever ties with drug trafficking was echoed by people like Alex, originally from Oaxaca. He lamented that cases of disappearances where families directly denounce the involvement of organized crime are not investigated.
The march adopted the pirate flag from the anime One Piece as its banner, but young people who participated criticized conservative politicians for appropriating this symbol. Days earlier, Vato Montés, a user of X, revealed that the metadata of a manifesto shared on the social media accounts “Generación Z México” showed that it was created by Monetiq, an agency that helps monetize far-right media outlets and shares a tax address with former PRI congressman José Alfredo Femat Flores.
Investigué al movimiento de Generación Z México y encontré evidencia de que están ligados a un exdiputado priista. El resumen es que en la metadata de los documentos del movimiento está el nombre de una agencia que comparte domicilio con el exdiputado.https://t.co/KryaHlD932 pic.twitter.com/H7dIYHV7Cc
— vato montés (@pincheAyax) November 5, 2025
“We think it’s a mockery. Even in anime, something similar happens; Luffy—the protagonist—exposes those who pretend to be pirates when they aren’t… The political parties think that using this symbol will make us empathize with them, but no, it doesn’t. For me, this symbol means freedom. We want to end corrupt governments; in this case, it’s not just Morena, the problem is all the political parties,” said a university student who crossed out party logos on a piece of cardboard.
Similarly, a group of young people with their faces covered demanded, using a microphone and loudspeaker, a change in the entire political class, regardless of their party affiliation.
“Why do we always put the same guys in charge, or the same people who come from a very privileged group in society? That privilege clouds their vision and prevents them from understanding the problem with the minibuses, the subway, public transportation, and so on. So, what good are political parties if they’re all going to do the same thing?” said a student from the Zócalo; he pointed out that proof of this is that federal legislators still haven’t approved reducing the workweek from 48 to 40 hours.
“We are people, we deserve to live,” one of them shouted. One of his companions criticized the opposition politicians who called for the mobilization because, she said, “they aren’t here putting their bodies on the line, it’s always the working class,” referring to the protesters who, meanwhile, were trying to tear down the metal barriers that the federal government had erected to protect the National Palace, the Mexico City government offices, and the Cathedral.
This Saturday, dozens of police officers mobilized in the Zócalo, reached 5 de Febrero Street, and at the corner with Venustiano Carranza, they hit a protester, also launched tear gas and advanced along 16 de Septiembre and 20 de Noviembre streets to disperse the protest.
Protestors spraypainted anti-semitic graffiti directed at the President on the doors of Mexico’s Supreme Court, which has been targeted by right wing billionaire Ricardo Salinas after last week ruling he would have to pay billions in back-taxes.
President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, the Ministry of the Interior, the Mexico City government, and the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation condemned the acts of violence that left at least 100 police officers injured in the Historic Center; 40 were taken to hospitals. Even before the protest began, dozens of police officers blocked traffic on Francisco I. Madero Avenue.
“The march was proceeding peacefully until a hooded group started the violence,” the Secretary of Citizen Security explained at a press conference.
In the Zócalo, while people with their faces covered struggled to pull down the metal barriers in front of the National Palace, some chanted the National Anthem from further away, while other protesters exclaimed: “Whoever doesn’t jump is Claudia!” and “Whoever doesn’t jump is a chairo.”
Contrasts characterized the protest. Two elderly women dressed in white talked about how Xóchitl Gálvez’s presidential campaign ended.
Other women carried signs and cloths with the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and even sang songs to her.
“Mexico belongs to Christ. Religious freedom,” read one of the signs. Although fewer in number, young people also carried images of the Virgin Mary.
As the march moved toward the Zócalo, criticisms from onlookers could be heard. “This is the Pink Wave!” shouted a woman who responded to each of the protesters’ slogans with the phrase: “Long live my President!”
Others shouted, amid laughter, misogynistic phrases alluding to President Sheinbaum’s body.
Among those who watched the attempt to tear down the metal barriers, some voiced calls for the removal of President Sheinbaum, while others, like Erick, a young man, acknowledged that it was too soon to demand her dismissal but expressed frustration that the federal government was not showing progress in guaranteeing security.
Esteban, a teacher who attended the march with his daughter, was not bothered that opposition politicians were promoting it: “As long as it’s for the good of the country, excellent, the country needs them all.”
In contrast, one young woman insisted on distancing herself from political parties. “We’re not with any of them; we’re marching because we’re fed up with the violence,” she asserted. Her partner celebrated the participation of people of all ages.
A man from Morelia, Michoacán, joined the call for justice for the murder of Carlos Manzo and insisted: “I just want security.”
Oldies.
Desperate Times
November 16, 2025
Mexico City’s “Gen Z” march, heavily publicized by the ultra-right wing & corporate media, featured the same old geriatric gentry, with the new addition of a violent shock group.
Mexico’s Curiously Elderly Gen-Z March
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More geriatric than Gen-Z, the violence at yesterday’s astro-turfed right wing march by a shock group marked another sad degeneration for Mexico’s feckless right wing opposition.
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Youth require prospects for radical transformation to confront the course of war marked by imperialism, which has already demonstrated its willingness to exercise the same barbarity as the 20th century in the Gaza Strip.
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