Former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont returns to Barcelona

Luke James

After seven years in exile, former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont reemerged in Barcelona this morning to give a speech to supporters despite being hunted by the police.

Puigdemont, who announced his intention to return yesterday but was likely already in the country, appeared in public for the first time since 2017 just before 9am near the Arc de Triomf.

Surrounded by supporters, Pugidemont was bundled through the crowds and waiting media to a platform where, visibly nervous, he addressed the “seven years of persecution we have faced for wanting to listen to the voice of the people of Catalonia” in the 2017 independence referendum.

“Despite their best efforts, despite the harm they wanted to do to us, despite the face of repression we have seen, today I have come here to remind them that we are still here,” said Puigdemont.

“We’re still here. We’re still here because we have a right to stop. Nobody in politics has a right to renounce a right which is collective: the right of the people of Catalonia to decide freely their future.”

🎥 | Former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont makes his first appearance in Catalonia in seven years, giving a speech to gathered supporters ahead of the parliamentary session

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— Catalan News (@catalannews) August 8, 2024

After the speech, which lasted around five minutes, Puigdemont left through a gap at the back of the stage in front of the Arc de Triomf. A message played over a loudspeaker asked supporters to accompany Puigdemont to the Catalan Parliament a few hundred metres away.

Tear gas

The crowd made its way towards the Parliament and police later used tear gas to disperse them.

However, Puigdemont could not be seen among the crowd and did not appear inside the Parliament for the first session since May’s elections, in which pro-independence parties lost their majority for the first time since 2010.

The Catalan police, who have gone as far as searching the sewers around the Parliament, said they have so far not been able to arrest Puigdemont.

Police sources told Catalan media that they allowed Puigdemont’s speech on the basis that he would hand himself in afterwards. Puigdemont broke the agreement and the Catalan police have since detained one of their own officers for helping him escape.

Inside the Parliament, the new President, Socialist Salvador Illa, made clear his frustration with the dramatic events which overshadowed his investiture.

Prime Minister

The Socialist Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, agreed an amnesty with independence leaders that was meant to facilitate a calm return of Puigdemont and others, but last month the Spanish Supreme Court, which has a majority of conservative judges, refused to support it.

Without mentioning Puigdemont directly, Illa called on the courts to respect the law passed by the Spanish Parliament, which he said is needed to ensure “Catalonia can look forward and not lose time.”

“I want to make clear at the beginning of my intervention my determination for the full restoration of the political rights of all the citizens and those of all political parties, said Illa in an effort to reach out to independence supporters.

Illa “is a person who is committed to dialogue, who will turn the page and open a new chapter that will not be so marked by identarian debates, division and confrontation,” Laura Ballarin Cereza, a Catalan Socialist party member of the European Parliament, told Nation.Cymru.

🎥 Catalan police use tear gas on protesters trying to break into Catalan parliament during investiture debate after Puigdemont’s return

Pro-independence and unionist demonstrators face each other at doors of Ciutadella where chamber is located

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— Catalan News (@catalannews) August 8, 2024

The Socialists finished first in May’s elections, in which many fatigued independence supporters stayed at home, with 42 seats but needed support of other parties to reach the 65 seats needed to govern.

The centre-left pro-independence party Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya chose to negotiate a deal with the Socialist party rather than face new elections in which they feared they could suffer an even worse result than the 13 seats they lost in May.

The agreement includes major new powers over the collection and management of taxes, protection for the system of Catalan language immersion schooling, and a promise of negotiations over the future of Catalonia’s place in the Spanish state.

“We said yes to fiscal sovereignty for our country so that we can end the fiscal deficit, which has been impeding us for decades, and to have more resources to invest in our public services,” said Marta Rovira, the general secretary of Esquerra Republicana, of the deal which has split the party’s membership.

As well as Esquerra, the left-wing federalists Communs will also vote for the investiture of Illa as president after negotiating measures designed to end the country’s housing crisis, to which a lack of regulation in tourist accommodation has played a significant part.

Dani Cornellà, a member of parliament for left-wing pro-independence party La CUP, said Illa would be a “right-wing and pro-Spanish president” who would end the independence “process.”

Professor Jesús Palomar i Baget of the University of Barcelona said the process “won’t stop because there’s a Socialist government but it will set it back in the mid-term.”