'We don't need Bezos': Venice activists prepare to protest against tech billionaire's wedding

While last-minute preparations for US billionaire Jeff Bezos’ lavish Venice wedding adjacent week should beryllium nether way, protesters are drafting up plans successful parallel to artifact streets and waterways and nonstop a message: nan Amazon laminitis is not invited successful their city.

For immoderate Venetians, nan wedding of Bezos and Lauren Sánchez, a erstwhile TV journalist, which is rumoured to beryllium costing immoderate €10 million, represents nan sell-off of their metropolis to nan highest bidder – and they are mobilising against it. 

Marta Sottoriva, an organiser of nan No Space for Bezos campaign, told Euronews that activists are demonstrating against Bezos’ wedding because of what it represents for nan city.

“We are not protesting nan wedding per se, but a imagination of Venice … arsenic a metropolis that group travel and consume,” Sottoriva said. 

The billionaire is besides a “symbol for a type of wealthiness built connected nan exploitation of nan many”, citing Amazon’s guidance to unionisation, Sottoriva said, while noting his beingness astatine US President Donald Trump’s inauguration. 

Sottoriva based on nan metropolis progressively caters to visitors and large-scale events alternatively than its residents, resulting successful “depopulation and nan closure of galore services and spaces for locals”. In immoderate ways, nan problem of overtourism and nan billionaire’s luxury arena “represent nan aforesaid imagination of nan metropolis arsenic a commodity”, she said.

'We request houses and decent wages'

Scant specifications person been made charismatic astir nan wedding, but immoderate 200 guests are expected to be and are said to person booked nan city's astir costly hotels, while nan Amazon laminitis will beryllium travelling pinch his yachts.

While nan run does not expect to extremity nan wedding, it hopes to propulsion a spanner successful nan works. The activists person already begun to return a stand, astir notably by hanging a banner daubed pinch Bezos’ sanction crossed retired connected nan doorbell building of San Giorgio Basilica connected Thursday, while posters advertizing their actions are plastered astir nan city.

The group is readying its main objection for 28 June. “We will create immoderate inconvenience and delays and make nan protestation visible,” Sottoriva said, adding that nan serene protests will characteristic group blocking roads, clogging up canals connected boats and kayaks and jumping into nan water. 

She hopes hundreds will travel retired crossed Venice. “We’ll besides person group playing euphony – it’s going to beryllium a statement for nan city, too.”

It is not nan first clip Bezos’s beingness has courted contention successful Europe: successful 2022, Rotterdam faced disapproval for considering dismantling its iconic De Hef Bridge truthful that his yacht could pass, contempt nan metropolis council’s committedness not to disturb nan monument aft it was restored 5 years prior.

Venice has go a poster kid for nan impacts of overtourism, pinch nan number of visitors ballooning successful caller decades, pinch immoderate 30 cardinal visiting nan mini metropolis each year.

Just 51,000 locals reside successful nan historical centre, pinch astir 250,000 much surviving connected Venice’s mainland. Some Venetians kick that they person been pushed retired of their neighbourhoods by rising costs and that tourism is straining nan city’s infrastructure and diluting Venice's unsocial character.

The metropolis has introduced a tourer tax, pinch a regular interest for visitors, which its mayor, Luigi Brugnaro, said intends to thief nan metropolis to dampen down monolithic influxes of travellers, though critics opportunity it has failed to dissuade visitors from coming successful droves.

But immoderate spot nan wedding arsenic an opportunity, pinch immoderate business owners telling Italian media that they reason nan protests and that events for illustration Bezos’ wedding bring successful custom.

The wedding has besides been wholeheartedly embraced by nan mayor, pinch Brugnaro saying he felt “honoured” that Bezos had picked Venice. “We are very proud,’’ he told nan AP past week, adding that he hoped he would get nan chance to meet nan billionaire.

“I don’t cognize if I will person time, aliases if he will, to meet and shingle hands, but it’s an honour that they chose Venice. Venice erstwhile again reveals itself to beryllium a world stage.’’

Unsurprisingly, Sottoriva holds a contrasting view. “We don’t request Bezos. We request houses, decent wages, and a sustainable future.”