This is an interesting one, to say the least
A Spanish mayor who became a cult hero for staging supermarket robberies and giving stolen groceries to the poor on Thursday began a three-week march that looks set to embarrass the government and energize anti-austerity campaigners.
Juan Manuel Sanchez Gordillo, regional lawmaker and mayor of the town of Marinaleda -- population 2,645 -- in the southern region of Andalusia, said food stolen last week in the robberies went to families hit hardest by Spain's economic crisis.
About 1,000 marchers set out from the town of Jodar - the town with Andalusia's highest unemployment rate - intending to walk across the region in blistering summer heat to persuade other local leaders to refuse to comply with government reforms, deputy mayor Esperanze Saavedra told NBC News.
"We want the government to be sensitive to us and think more about those who are suffering than about the banks," Saavedra said.
He plans to tell mayors to skip debt payments, stop layoffs, cease home evictions and ignore central government demands for budget cuts, a message that infuriates Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's government as it tries to convince investors in Spanish bonds that he can fix the battered economy.
Sanchez Gordillo and those working with him say they wants to draw attention to the human face of Spain's economic mess - poverty levels have risen by over 15 percent since 2007, a quarter of workers are jobless and tens of thousands have been evicted from their homes.
Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.
