BRUSSELS: The deposed leader of Catalonia Carles Puigdemont said Monday that there could be solutions to Spain’s political crisis other than independence for his region, insisting he was still open to “agreement” with Madrid.
“I’ve always been willing to accept the new reality of a different relationship with Spain,” Puigdemont said in Brussels, where he traveled to after his government declared independence from Spain last month.
“It’s still possible. I’ve been pro-independence all my life, working for 30 years to secure a different way of integrating Catalonia within Spain. I’m still for an agreement,” the former leader told Belgium’s Le Soir newspaper.
Spain was plunged into its worst political crisis in decades when Catalan lawmakers voted to split from Madrid following a banned referendum in the wealthy northeastern region on October 1.
The central government hit back, revoking the region’s autonomous powers, sacking its parliament and Puigdemont’s government, and calling fresh regional elections for December 21.
The crisis has caused deep distress in the European Union as it comes to terms with Britain’s shock decision to leave the bloc.
It has also sent business confidence plunging in Catalonia — home to 7.5 million people and accounting for a fifth of Spain’s GDP — with more than 2,400 firms re-registering their headquarters outside the region.
Puigdemont says he wants to run as a candidate in the regional election but his PDeCAT party is lagging far behind another pro-independence group in polling.
The leftist ERC — whose leader was Puigdemont’s deputy — said last week it would not allow its candidates to run on the same ticket as PDeCAT.
Several Catalan former lawmakers are in jail accused of violating Spain’s constitution for declaring independence.
Puigdemont, who says he is in Belgium because he cannot get fair treatment from courts back home, has spoken of slowing his independence drive and last week accused Madrid of planning a “wave” of repression against separatists.
“We’ve been forced to adapt our agenda to avoid violence,” he already said at the end of October.
“If the price to pay is slowing the creation of a republic, then we need to consider that as a price worth paying in 21st-century Europe.”
Catalan ex-leader says independence not only solution to crisis
Catalan ex-leader says independence not only solution to crisis
French minister pledges tight security at rally for killed activist
- Deranque’s death has fomented tensions ahead of municipal elections next month and presidential polls next year
- Macron has said there was no place in France “for movements that adopt and legitimize violence“
LYON: French police will be out in force at a weekend rally for a slain far-right activist, the interior minister said Friday, as the country seeks to contain anger over the fatal beating blamed on the hard left.
Quentin Deranque, 23, died from head injuries after being attacked by at least six people on the sidelines of a protest against a politician from the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party in the southeastern city of Lyon last week.
His death has fomented tensions ahead of municipal elections next month and presidential polls next year, in which the far-right National Rally (RN) party is seen as having its best chance yet at winning the top job.
President Emmanuel Macron, who is serving his last year in office, has said there was no place in France “for movements that adopt and legitimize violence,” and urged the far right and hard left to clean up their act.
Deranque’s supporters have called for a march in his memory on Saturday in Lyon.
The Greens mayor of Lyon asked the state to ban it, but Interior Minister Laurent Nunez declined to do so.
Nunez said he had planned an “extremely large police deployment” with reinforcements from outside the city to ensure security at the rally expected to be attended by 2,000 to 3,000 people, and likely to see counter-protesters from the hard left show up.
“I can only ban a demonstration when there are major risks of public disorder and I am not in a position to contain them,” he told the RTL broadcaster.
“My role is to strike a balance between maintaining public order and freedom of expression.”
- ‘Fascist demonstration’ -
Jordan Bardella, the president of anti-immigration RN, has urged party members not to go.
“We ask you, except in very specific and strictly supervised local situations (a tribute organized by a municipality, for example), not to attend these gatherings nor to associate the National Rally with them,” he wrote in a message sent to party officials and seen by AFP.
LFI coordinator Manuel Bompard backed the mayor’s call for a ban, warning on X it would be a “fascist demonstration” that “over 1,000 neo-Nazis from all over Europe” were expected to attend.
Two people, aged 20 and 25, have been charged with intentional homicide in relation to the fatal beating, according to the Lyon prosecutor and their lawyers.
A third suspect has been charged with complicity in the killing.
Jacques-Elie Favrot, a 25-year-old former parliamentary assistant to LFI lawmaker Raphael Arnault, has admitted to having been present at the scene but denied delivering the blows that killed Deranque, his attorney said.
Favrot said “it was absolutely not an ambush, but a clash with a group of far-right activists,” he added.
Italy’s hard-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Wednesday said the killing of Deranque was “a wound for all of Europe.”
Referring to her comments, Macron said everyone should “stay in their own lane,” but Meloni later said that Macron had misinterpreted her comments.
Opinion polls put the far right in the lead for the presidency in 2027, when Macron will have to step down after the maximum two consecutive terms in office.
