VENICE, Italy (AP) — A star-studded guest list arrived in Venice on Thursday, descending on the lagoon city for the weekend wedding of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez, which has galvanized an assortment of protesters.
The wedding has divided Venice, with some activists protesting it as an exploitation of the city by the billionaire Bezos while ordinary residents suffer from overtourism, high housing costs and the constant threat of climate-induced flooding.
One group called Extinction Rebellion staged a small protest in St. Mark’s Square on Thursday featuring a masked bride and groom and people holding posters decrying climate change and income inequalities.
“The planet is burning but don’t worry, here’s the list of the 27 dresses of Lauren Sanchez,” read one, a reference to the bride’s reported wedding weekend wardrobe.
About a dozen Venetian organizations — including housing advocates, anti-cruise ship campaigners and university groups — have united to protest the multi-day event under the banner “No Space for Bezos,” a play on words also referring to the bride’s recent space flight.
They have staged small-scale protests, unfurling anti-Bezos banners on iconic Venetian sites. They were joined Monday by Greenpeace and the British group “Everyone Hates Elon,” which has smashed Teslas to protest Elon Musk, to unfurl a giant banner in St. Mark’s Square protesting purported tax breaks for billionaires.
On Wednesday, other activists launched a float down the Grand Canal featuring a mannequin of Bezos clinging onto an Amazon box, his fists full of fake dollars. The British publicity firm that announced the stunt said it wasn’t a protest of the wedding “but against unchecked wealth, media control, and the growing privatisation of public spaces.”
Bezos’ representatives have not commented on the protests as Bezos and Sanchez arrived at the dock of the Aman Hotel on the Grand Canal with two security boats in tow.
The local activists had planned a more organized protest for Saturday, aiming to obstruct access to canals with boats to prevent guests from reaching a wedding venue. They modified the protest to a march from the train station after claiming a victory, asserting that their pressure forced organizers to change the venue to the Arsenale, a more easily secured site beyond Venice’s congested center.
“It will be a strong, decisive protest, but peaceful,’’ said Federica Toninello, an activist with the Social Housing Assembly network. “We want it to be like a party, with music, to make clear what we want our Venice to look like.”
Among the 200 guests confirmed to be attending the wedding are Mick Jagger, Ivanka Trump, Oprah Winfrey, Katy Perry and Leonardo DiCaprio.
Venice, renowned for its romantic canal vistas, hosts hundreds of weddings each year, not infrequently those of the rich and famous. Previous celebrity weddings, like that of George Clooney to human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin in 2014, were embraced by the public. Hundreds turned out to wish the couple well at City Hall.
Bezos has a different political and business profile, said Tommaso Cacciari, a prominent figure in the movement that successfully pushed for a ban on cruise ships over 25,000 tons traveling through the Giudecca Canal in central Venice.
“Bezos is not a Hollywood actor,’’ Cacciari said. “He is an ultra-billionaire who sat next to Donald Trump during the inauguration, who contributed to his reelection and is contributing in a direct and heavy way to this new global obscurantism.’’
Critics cite Amazon’s labor practices, ongoing tax disputes with European governments and Bezos’ political associations as reasons for concern.
Activists also argue that the Bezos wedding exemplifies broader failures in municipal governance, particularly the prioritization of tourism over residents’ needs. They cite measures such as the day-tripper tax — which critics argue reinforces Venice’s image as a theme park — as ineffective. Chief among their concerns is the lack of investment in affordable housing and essential services.
City officials have defended the wedding. Mayor Luigi Brugnaro called the event an honor for Venice, and the city denied the wedding would cause disruptions.
“Venice once again reveals itself to be a global stage,’’ Brugnaro told The Associated Press, adding he hoped to meet Bezos while he was in town.
Meanwhile, a Venetian environmental research association, Corila, issued a statement saying Bezos’ Earth Fund was supporting its work with an “important donation.”
Corila, which unites university scholars and Italy’s main national research council in researching Venetian protection strategies, wouldn’t say how much Bezos was donating but said contact began in April, well before the protests started.
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