“Long live free Catalonia!”: after seven years in exile, Catalan independence leader Carles Puigdemont made a brief reappearance in Barcelona on Thursday, before disappearing again, without being arrested, evading a vast police presence and the arrest warrant still issued against him.
By mid-morning, the rumour was spreading among the thousands of supporters who had come to watch Carles Puigdemont’s brief speech near Parliament: he had fled again.
Very quickly, according to images broadcast by the Spanish media, large-scale vehicle checks were set up in the streets of Barcelona and on the roads of Spain. Questioned by AFP, the local police refused to confirm the launch of a large-scale operation to find Puigdemont.
Moments earlier, however, the former president of the regional executive, who fled Spain in 2017 to escape prosecution for his role in the region’s failed attempt at secession, had openly staged his return to Catalonia.
Amid cheers from the crowd chanting “president, president,” he took to a stage set up in front of Barcelona’s Arc de Triomphe, near the regional parliament, around 9 a.m. and delivered a short speech, AFP journalists noted.
“I don’t know how long it will be before we can see each other again, my friends, but no matter what happens, when we do, I hope we can scream loudly together again.” […] “Long live free Catalonia!” said the former Catalan president, who spent the last seven years in Belgium and France.
“Unbearable humiliation”
“I really liked his tone, […] “And it moved me to see him,” Albert, a Barcelona resident in his fifties who did not want to give his name, told AFP. In the crowd gathered, a few tears were shed.
After his speech, his supporters headed to Parliament, where the election of the new president of the regional executive, the socialist Salvador Illa, was being held, in which Carles Puigdemont had repeatedly announced his intention to participate.
But when the debates began, the deputies of his party, Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia) arrived without their leader.
“An unbearable humiliation. One more. It is painful to witness this madness live, for which (Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez) is the main person responsible. It is unforgivable to damage the image of Spain in this way,” the president of the Popular Party (PP, right) Alberto Núñez Feijóo lashed out on X.
“They are looking for President Puigdemont in the same way that the National Police and the Civil Guard were looking for the ballot boxes and ballot papers just before the 1ster “October”, the date of the illegal self-determination referendum organised by the independence leader in 2017, joked Albert Batet, leader of Junts in the Catalan Parliament, during the investiture debate.
Still the subject of an arrest warrant despite the amnesty law negotiated by Pedro Sanchez in exchange for Junts’ support for his government, Carles Puigdemont risked being arrested at any time upon his return – the police were required to comply with the arrest warrant against him.
Highly criticized by the opposition, this amnesty law is at the heart of multiple legal debates and, on 1er In July, the Supreme Court ruled that it only applied to some of the crimes charged against the pro-independence leader – who again denounced on Wednesday “the rebellious attitude of certain judges of the Supreme Court.”
His arrest before the debates could have derailed, or at least delayed, the process of swearing in Salvador Illa as the new president of the Generalitat, the regional government.
After months of negotiations since the May elections which saw the socialists overtake Carles Puigdemont’s party, but without obtaining an absolute majority, a coalition agreement – notably supported by the separatists of the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), to the great displeasure of Junts – finally saw the light of day last week.
Former Health Minister under Pedro Sanchez, Salvador Illa could become the first president of the Catalan executive not to come from the ranks of a nationalist party since 2010.