It seems living in paradise can be hell as a tide of protests against "overtourism" has hit Spain in the run-up to the holiday season.

Demonstrations are planned on Saturday across the Canary Islands by campaigners who claim Britons' favourite Spanish destination is a victim of over-development, as well as rallies in support in Madrid, Malaga and even Berlin and London.

A hunger strike has been staged by campaigners from Canarias Se Agota (Canary Islands Sold Out) since last week against two large hotel developments.

Hoteliers in the Canary Islands have promised to build homes for tourism employees to help deal with the lack of accommodation for workers.

In Barcelona and the Balearic Islands, activists have put up fake signs at popular beaches in English warning of falling rocks or dangerous jellyfish.

The Spanish government said it was committed to sustainable tourism but claimed this key sector of the economy brought 2.7 million jobs, with holidaymaker numbers set to reach record highs.

Spain's tourism minister Jordi Hereu said a record 9.8 million international visitors came to Spain this year.

"The tourist employment data for March is at the level of a country that is a world power and that is committed to a more sustainable model," he said in a video statement posted on social media platform X.

Spain's housing minister Isabel Rodriguez promised the government would crack down on tourist flats in cities where locals struggle to afford housing. "We will have to intervene and limit tourist apartments. We cannot look the other way," she told El País newspaper last week.

Jet2holidays this week became the first UK operator to sign Mallorca's "responsible tourism pledge".

However, Spanish airlines expect a record summer season and are adding 13 per cent seats compared with 2023, the Spanish Airlines Association said last week.

Fernando Clavijo, the president of the Canary Islands, said protests on the archipelago were motivated by "tourismphobia" and called for common sense because tourism is the engine of the islands' economy, providing an estimated 35 per cent of GDP.

Sharon Backhouse, the British founder of a sustainable tourism company GeoTenerife, said paying lip-service to "sustainable tourism" was not good enough

. "Sustainable tourism means paying fair wages, letting local people have their own businesses alongside [tourist companies]," she told i.

"If you have record numbers of tourists on the island but you have a third of the population at risk of poverty, it is not working. I have written to Clavijo to say we need root and branch change.

"But this is not to say investors should not make a profit because I am an investor, too. We need to empower locals to benefit from this galloping tourism, not just investors."

Ms Backhouse insisted Canarians do not dislike British tourists. "It is not a war on tourists, they are just asking to be beneficiaries of this as well, not to live in poverty, not just to change sheets in hotels," she said.

Marcelo Sanchez-Oro, author of the book The Relationship Between Hosts and Tourists: From Colonisation to Tourismophobia, said the synergy between residents and tourists depended on balance.

"What is important is that their respective needs are fulfilled. When this breaks down, the problems start," he told i.

"There is a contagion effect, with more protests in Barcelona, Malaga and elsewhere. Local people feel they are not getting much back despite the invasion of large numbers of tourists."

A crowd of around 2,000 people protested in Paris against racism, Islamophobia and violence against children on Sunday after a court allowed their demonstration to go ahead.

Demonstrators gathered in Paris were holding banners including one reading "long live the resistance of the Palestinian people" during a protest "against racism, against Islamophobia" at the call of various organisations in Paris on 21 April 2024.

© AFP - ALAIN JOCARDDemonstrators hold a banner reading "long live the resistance of the Palestinian people" during a protest "against racism, against Islamophobia" at the call of various organisations in Paris on 21 April 2024.

Bans on protests have been more frequent in France in recent months amid tensions stirred by Israel's war on Hamas in Gaza.

In a country that is home to large Muslim and Jewish communities, authorities have banned many pro-Palestinian demonstrations and public gatherings, citing the risk of antisemitic hate crimes and violence.

Perhaps that's why rather than just an hold an anti-genocide rally, they instead marched under the banner of 'anti-islamophobia/racism', etc..

On Sunday, the protesters marched peacefully in Paris from the multi-ethnic Barbes neighbourhood towards Place de la Republique.

Many chanted slogans remembering Nahel, a 17-year-old of North African descent who was fatally shot during a police traffic stop last year.

More on that incident, here: French police say 'we're at war with vermin' as urban riots spread

Paris police chief Laurent Nunez told broadcaster BFM TV he initially chose to ban the march because in announcing the protest the organisers had likened French police violence to the war in Gaza, and he felt the event could cause a threat to public order.

The violence meted out by France's police against the Yellow Vest protesters was unprecedented in Europe; 11 people reportedly were killed and over 100 suffered serious injuries, from the loss of an eye to a limb.

That argument was rejected by Paris's administrative court in a fast-track decision.

"Fighting and mobilising for the protection of all children is normal, it should be," said Yessa Belkgodja, one of the organisers of the march, welcoming the court's decision.

"If we are banned from protesting, it means we don't have the right to express ourselves in France. We are being monitored on social media.

That's enough, leave us alone", said Yamina Ayad, a retiree who was wrapped in Palestine flag.

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