Jeff Bezos, the tech mogul, is marrying Lauren Sanchez in a wedding with celebrity guests in the fragile city of Venice, but many locals aren’t happy.
Greenpeace unfurled a giant sign in St Mark’s Square which read:
“If you can rent Venice for your wedding, you can pay more tax.”
This is a stab at how billionaires aren’t paying their fair share of taxes, but also part of the protest is against so many people descending all at once on the city.
“The problem is not the wedding, the problem is the system. We think that one big billionaire can’t rent a city for his pleasure,” Simona Abbate, one of the protesters on Monday said.
Local anti-tourism activists said they were determined to disrupt the festivities, saying city bosses were ‘prioritizing tourism over resident needs.’
