MEXICO CITY (AP) 鈥� Teachers, families of animal rights groups and a range of other social movements in Mexico are capitalizing on impending celebrations next week to put pressure on authorities and make demands.
Protesters from the country’s teachers’ union, CNTE, blocked main throughways in Mexico City, bringing central parts of the city to a standstill this week to demand better working conditions. Demonstrators knocked down figures of World Cup soccer players, broke into a government building and on Friday played a soccer match on a blockaded street. At the same time visitors from across the world began flooding in to the Mexican capital ahead of the competition that starts June 11.
鈥淭he proximity of the World Cup places a lot more pressure on the government,鈥� said Abel Escalante, a 52-year-old special education psychologist who traveled from the southern state of Chiapas to protest, who was blocking the street around the city鈥檚 iconic Angel de la Independencia monument on Friday.
The protests come just days before Mexico City hosts the tournament’s opening ceremony, co-hosted by Mexico, the United States and Canada. In addition to kicking off the competition, the Mexican capital, and will also host a number of matches.
They are joined by a range of other social movements that have jumped on the World Cup to increasingly place pressure on the government of at a time when authorities seek to
鈥淭his isn鈥檛 an event for the Mexican people. Tons of people are going to come, but they鈥檙e going to be people with all this disposable income. It鈥檚 for the elites. The few average people who do go will have to scrape together all the money they have to live off of,” Escalante added.
Sheinbaum responded to mounting protests on Friday morning, saying that 鈥渢he door is open鈥� for teachers to negotiate with the government over their demands for better retirement packages.
But she added groups of protesters, who broke in to a government building the day before, were trying to provoke a violent reaction from authorities, which she said was not going to happen. She promised that Mexico’s main square known as the Zocalo, which the teachers tried to take over at the end of May to stage a sit-in, would remain open for World Cup events.
Sheinbaum’s government has come under criticism by activist groups for prioritizing World Cup celebrations over pressing social needs, like addressing the soaring cost-of-living or the country’s
More groups planned protests in the coming weeks as celebrations were slated to kick off. Building on top of all that is a robust protest culture in the Mexican capital, with unions and activist groups that regularly take over public spaces in demonstrations.
Protests of families searching for their disappeared and rural teachers pushing for better working conditions have mounted as the local government has made a push to beautify the city.
Local workers have painted bridges bright purple, planted orange Mexican marigolds across the city and plastered streets with cartoon axolotls, an endangered species that has become the sort of mascot of Mexico City.
Last weekend, families searching for their loved ones plastered the faces of the disappeared people across the city and sprayed graffiti next to one of those bright purple bridges now lining the city’s streets.
鈥淢exico, champion of disappearance,鈥� it read.
___
Follow AP鈥檚 Latin America coverage at
Copyright © 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.
