‘When did empathy become exceptional?’: what’s behind Sánchez’s plan to ‘regularise’ 500,000 undocumented migrants in Spain

A mural in the town of Albacete, Spain, where the mayor and municipal groups are among those calling for migrants’ position to be legalised. Photograph: Pablo Garcia/The Guardian

You don’t need a degree in political science to understand why so many supposedly centrist European leaders have begun talking about immigration in terms that would have been unthinkable even a few years ago.

Far-right parties across the continent have fuelled their rise by seizing on the issue as a political cosh with which to beat their more mainstream and established rivals, whom they accuse of complacency, inaction and a failure to defend borders.