Magaluf under siege: 'We built six-foot fences to keep British invaders out'

Earlier in June, authorities in the Mediterranean holiday resort of Magaluf announced a crackdown on drunken British tourists, banning street drinking between 10pm and 8am while reinforcing the local police patrols and introducing fines for a range of drink-related offences.

The story came 11 months after a British woman made national headlines by indulging in a game called "mamading", performing sex acts in exchange for cocktails. This time, the news from Magaluf caused some mild hand-wringing in the British press, and the obligatory interview with an unrepetent lad/ladette on tour. But no one seemed particularly bothered.

With Islamic State (Isis) raising hell in the Middle East, Fifa's crooked empire collapsing before our eyes and the Conservatives threatening to tear themselves apart over Europe yet again, it's hard to get too worked up about what the flower of British youth are getting up to in some hedonistic corner of the Balearics.

Some tut and shake their sanctimonious heads, others settle for a superior smirk and a wry comment about the debauchery of the lads' mag generation. Most people, in Britain at least, don't really care.

But in Mallorca at least, this crackdown is very big news. The British invaders have turned Magaluf into a nightmare for those who have to live there, and are forced to pick up the pieces when the sozzled revellers have gone home.

Their attitude is not one of mild scorn or indulgent mockery; it is revulsion, pure and simple. After years of suffering at the hands of the British tourists, known locally as guiris (pejorative slang for a drunken, sun-burnt foreigner) , they're mad as hell and they ain't gonna take it anymore.

"Magaluf is a small tourist town where 4,500 people live," says one local resident, engineer Miguel Zuñiga. "It isn't a theme park for drunkenness, as many of your compatriots think. Although some parts of my town resemble the ancient lawless city of Kowloon, in Magaluf we have schools, GPs, sports centres, parks, old houses, mechanical workshops, bank branches, churches... like in any other town in Europe.

"British tourism is annoying, disrespectful, noisy, dirty, tight-fisted and undesirable. How do you think I should explain to my three-year-old daughter that if you walk across the beach you're likely to see an elderly woman going to the toilet and two lunatics peeping into the cubicle from below? In England is it possible to raise a ruckus and organise street brawls as they do here?

"The worst thing about all this is that, little by little, hatred is building among the community. We suffer these tourists for three months of the year, the rest of the year we are very calm. We don't miss them."

It seems that Zuñiga's view is fairly typical. Another local resident, student Kevin Pery, says: "I struggle to remember anything here apart from bars, drugs, parties and drunk people. No one remembers what it was like before this, no one remembers the beaches of Magaluf."

Pery says he loves the fact tourists come to his island but hates the culture the guiris bring with them and the debauchery that has turned Magaluf into what he calls "the black point of the island".

"They only drink, eat things like McDonalds or cheap kebabs, the only exploring they do is to buy clothes at the local Zara," Pery says. "They look very similar to the people from Geordie Shore and they perceive Mallorca as a lawless place, where no matter how many bad things you do, as it isn't your home, you don't worry and no one is going tell you off.

"I have been [to the strip of bars which constitutes the central artery in Magaluf's heart of darkness] and the memory I have is pretty bad. Everyone drunk, people who could not stand up, pissing and vomiting in the middle of the street, fights with huge bottles... this type of thing. Although I have actually heard of more atrocities [which luckily I haven't seen] like rapes and 'mamading'."

'The season hasn't even started, and we've already had deaths'

For local women, the experience of walking the Calle de la Punta Ballena is particularly unpleasant, according to local journalist Vanessa Sanchez, who has regularly covered Magaluf's tourist strip with her film crew.

She said: "A lot of [guys] want to feel you up, try to pull you, there is no modesty. It's quite oppressive and I do feel a bit scared, although I have been as a reporter, and I feel more safe because I have my colleagues with me.

"One time I was standing alone in a bank and two 18-year-old guys came in. I had to give them a kick so they got away from me."

Describing the scenes she has witnessed, Sanchez says: "The spectacle is awful. Beyond the noise, and the dirtiness (did they not teach you in Britain to use bins?) and of not having any form of social conscience about what is good and what is bad, I have seen aggression, drunken tourists having sex in public without any trace of modesty and doing their things [p**sing, s**ting] in the street.

"The smell is unbearable and the cleaning services have to work thoroughly so that the next day, at the very least, you can walk without stepping on glass or excrement."

The guiris have also created a shadow economy of crime, drug peddlers pushing "Maria" (marijuana) and prostitutes dotted around the bars. Zuñiga says this has allowed a local mafia to flourish, and claims even the local police are involved in the racket.

Yet perhaps the most worrying aspect of Magaluf is "balconing", the kamikaze craze that persuades tourists to jump from one balcony to another, and has claimed the lives of several young drunk-addled young Britons.

Sanchez says: "I have seen drunk young people crossing from one balcony to the other without any fear. And the worst thing is that I have interviewed British people hours after one of their friends has fallen from the balcony and been admitted to hospital in a very serious condition.

"It didn't matter to them, all they were trying to do was overcome the hangover and they hadn't even told their parents what had happened. They didn't seem interested in knowing whether their friend could walk or not. What if the problem was worsening?

"At the moment, and without even starting the season, we have had three deaths."

'We have to fence them off'

With so much debauchery and aggression around them, the locals tend to steer clear of the beach; Zuñiga says the British have "kidnapped" it from them. Bars are also generally off-limits. Sanchez says she would never dream of visiting the Punta de Ballena strip, adding locals "wouldn't go out there for anything. It's British territory. There is nothing pleasant to see or do there, and besides the bar-owners don't want us".

Yet it seems the locals are feeling more and more trapped. Zuñiga says: "It's revealing to look at the height of the fences around our houses. The normal municipal limit is 0.5m and 1.2m in some cases.

"But if we don't make our fences 1.8m or higher, the British directly enter our houses, and some of the community have to hire private security guards to avoid being assaulted by hordes of drunk people.

"For me it wouldn't even cross my mind to go to London and destroy public gardens, gatecrash the house of a London architect, defecate on an office table and clean my arse with the plans. Neither would I walk the street, force a car to stop to prevent running me over, and then jump on the bonnet and start dancing. To your compatriots all these things occur."

'They must have psychological problems'

Apologists might claim that, without the money pumped into the local economy by British holidaymakers, Magaluf would not survive.

But local student Pery takes a dim view when asked if the carnage wreaked by the British tourists is compensated by the money they bring. "No way," he says. "Maybe they are supporting the hotels and businesses of Magaluf, but then the image they are giving of Mallorca damages us much more."

Zuñiga goes further. He says: "I have neighbours who own locales de borrachera [venues for drunkenness] in Magaluf, and I know that they have daily incomes of €10,000 a venue. There are some who make €20,000, people who make enough money, even though the high season only lasts 90 days.

"But what about the rest? What benefit do they get from a badly behaved and filthy tourist? Every member of the community can tell tales of drunken British people, injuries, vandalism, police... the profile is always the same, a spoilt and insolent guy, less than 25 years old, lacking in personality who is towed along by a group which has come in force."

We ask what can be done to improve the situation. Pery welcomes the increased police presence, but says the authorities must also look at their own community and stop the "favouritism" proffered to owners of the Punta de Ballena bars. Entrepreneurs must invest in tourism "without adding to the tacky supermarket of Magaluf".

Sanchez agrees that local investment is vital but claims this is already happening through the regeneration provided by the Melia hotel group and the emergence of higher-class tourist establishments such as the Sol Wave House hotel.

Yet for now, the guiris are firmly in charge. Despite the recent crackdown, the St George's flag will continue to flutter over Magaluf, and the locals will keep suffering.

"If all British people are like this, I think they must have major psychological problems," Zuñiga adds. "I wish they would stop coming to my town; in fact I would pay for them not to come."