Jeff Bezos arrives in Venice for wedding amid protests over inequality

Amazon tycoon acceptable to wed Lauren Sanchez successful lavish Venice wedding arsenic activists protestation ‘growing disparity’.

Multibillionaire Amazon laminitis Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez person arrived successful Venice up of their star-studded play wedding, an lawsuit that has galvanised an eclectic assortment of activistic groups protesting it.

Bezos waved from a h2o taxi arsenic helium and Sanchez arrived connected Wednesday astatine the dock of the Aman Hotel, a five-star edifice connected the Grand Canal, with 2 information boats successful tow.

The lavish lawsuit has drawn protests by groups who presumption it arsenic a motion of the increasing disparity betwixt the haves and have-nots, portion residents kick it exemplifies the mode their needs are disregarded successful the epoch of wide tourism to the historical and iconic lagoon city.

About a twelve Venetian organisations – including lodging advocates, anti-cruise vessel campaigners and assemblage groups – person agreed to protestation the multi-day lawsuit nether the banner “No Space for Bezos,” a play connected words besides referring to the bride’s caller abstraction flight.

They person staged small-scale protests, unfurling anti-Bezos banners connected iconic Venetian sites. They were joined Monday by Greenpeace and the British radical “Everyone Hates Elon,” which has smashed Tesla vehicles to protestation Elon Musk, to unfurl a elephantine banner successful St Mark’s Square protesting purported taxation breaks for billionaires.

On Wednesday, different activists launched a interval down the Grand Canal featuring a mannequin of Bezos clinging onto an Amazon box, his fists afloat of fake dollars. The British publicity steadfast that announced the stunt said it wasn’t a protestation of the wedding, “but against unchecked wealth, media control, and the increasing privatisation of nationalist spaces”.

There has been nary remark from Bezos’s representatives connected the protests.

Amazon multibillionaire laminitis Jeff Bezos, right, and Lauren Sanchez get by vessel astatine a edifice successful Venice, Italy, up of festivities successful the lagoon metropolis [Luca Bruno/AP Photo]

The section activists had planned a much organised protestation for Saturday, aiming to obstruct entree to canals with boats to forestall guests from reaching a wedding venue.

“It volition beryllium a strong, decisive protest, but peaceful,” said Federica Toninello, an activistic with the Social Housing Assembly network. “We privation it to beryllium similar a party, with music, to marque wide what we privation our Venice to look like.”

Among the 200 guests confirmed to beryllium attending the wedding are Mick Jagger, Ivanka Trump, Oprah Winfrey, Katy Perry and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Venice, renowned for its romanticist canal vistas, hosts hundreds of weddings each year, not infrequently those of the affluent and famous. Previous personage weddings, similar that of George Clooney to quality rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin successful 2014, were embraced by the public. Hundreds turned retired to privation the mates good astatine City Hall.

Bezos has a antithetic governmental and concern profile, said Tommaso Cacciari, a salient fig successful the question that successfully pushed for a prohibition connected cruise ships implicit 25,000 tons travelling done the Giudecca Canal successful cardinal Venice.

“Bezos is not a Hollywood actor,” Cacciari said. “He is an ultra-billionaire who sat adjacent to Donald Trump during the inauguration, who contributed to his re-election and is contributing successful a nonstop and dense mode to this caller planetary obscurantism.”