Junts, Comuns and ERC want to change the name of the Navas de Tolosa neighborhood because it bothers Muslims
The promoters consider it contradictory that Barcelona supports Gaza while maintaining the name of a 1212 battle in which Christians defeated Muslims.
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Together, Barcelona en Comú and ERC voted in 2025 in favor of change the name of the Navas neighborhood to Torrent de la Guineu, as reported All Barcelona. The PSC and the PP abstained and Vox was the only party that voted against it. The promoters want to remove the name because it recalls a decisive battle of the Reconquest in which Christians defeated Muslims.. They even consider it contradictory that Barcelona supports Gaza while maintaining this name, as they explain in a manifesto of the neighborhood association created to promote the name change. The proposal is eroding coexistence in the neighborhood and has led to the creation of an association to defend Navas' name, as reported Beethoven.
«Hatred of religions should not be the name of a neighborhood»
The association promoting the name change has turned the battle of Navas de Tolosa into a problem of religious coexistence. In the speech he presented before the Plenary Council of Sant Andreu, on March 5, 2025, stated that Barcelona, as a multicultural and welcoming city, could not maintain a neighborhood dedicated to a battle, «especially a battle of a religious nature». The promoters finished the argument with a forceful phrase: «The hatred of a war and the hatred of religions should not be the name of a neighborhood.».
The same association has published a document to justify the change in which describes the Christian victory of 1212 as a battle with «crusade airs». He also questions the historical account of the Reconquest and recalls that the battle has traditionally been presented as a great triumph for the Christians.
«Navas is incompatible with Gaza»
The discourse has gone so far as to link a 13th century battle to the current war in Gaza. In a protest manifesto published in 2026, the association considers it contradictory that Barcelona created the Gaza District to support the Palestinians while preserving a neighborhood dedicated to a «victory against the Arabs"». The text ends this argument with an exclamation: «What a contradiction!!». The promoters thus equate, in their political reasoning, the commemoration of a battle against the Almohad Empire with Barcelona's position on the Palestinian conflict.
The association had already used this same argument months earlier. In the summary of the Neighborhood Council of October 7, 2025, he again denounced the City Council's support for the rehabilitation of Gaza while maintained the name of a religious battle against the «infidels». The developers also took advantage of that meeting to recall that Navas is, according to them, the only neighborhood in Barcelona that retains its name in Spanish.
Signatures, hot chocolate and coexistence crisis
The campaign to change the name of the neighborhood included a collection of signatures that closed with 947 applications submitted to the City Council, 247 more than the 700 necessary to process the initiative, as reported by the same neighborhood association. The mobilization continued on April 18, 2026 with a protest chocolate party and speeches by the president of the entity, Charles Brown, and several members of the board. During the event, Rose Olmo, from the Historical Memory Vocalia, accused the City Council of contributing to «setting neighbors against one another» with their conflict management.
The proposal also divided the neighborhood movement. After the promoting association adopted the name of Torrent de la Guineu-Navas, a group of residents promoted a new entity to defend the historical denomination. One of the promoters, Christian Lyon, he denounced Betevé that the change had been decided «unilaterally, not in agreement with the entire neighborhood» and accused the former association of operating as a «private club». The discrepancies reached the City Council's Ombudsman Commission and resulted in a municipal participatory process. In November 2026, Alfred Puig, a member of the board in favor of change, still recognized in statements to RAC1 that there are partners opposed to abandoning the Navas name.
A city full of offenses to Islam
The case of the Navas neighborhood being named to commemorate a battle between Christians and Muslims is not unique to Barcelona. The city preserves street names dedicated to Christian military victories that could be the subject of the same argument.
The most obvious case is Lepanto Street, which commemorates the naval battle of 1571, in which a coalition of Christian powers defeated the fleet of the Ottoman Empire. The battle had an explicit religious dimension and the victory was celebrated in Catholic Europe as a triumph over Muslim Turkish power.
But Barcelona also pays tribute to figures such as John of Austria, who was the commander of the victorious Christian fleet at Lepanto. Even James I the Conqueror could be subject to the same questioning. The Catalan monarch conquered Mallorca in 1229, after defeating the Muslims who dominated the island, and took Valencia in 1238, until then under Islamic rule. Another example is Pelai, to whom Barcelona dedicates one of its most central streets. The first king of Asturias is considered the initiator of the Reconquest after the victory over the Muslim troops at Covadonga, in the 8th century. If the same criteria were applied as the promoters of Navas' change, these homages could also be questioned.
For now, the campaign has focused on Navas de Tolosa, while Barcelona continues to preserve streets dedicated to other battles and protagonists of Christian victories over Muslims. The proposal has already gained the support of Junts, Barcelona en Comú and ERC and has divided the neighborhood movement. The final decision on the name change will be in the hands of the municipal government of the next term, after the elections of May 2027.
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