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A real human tide ... hundreds of thousands of people gathered in Barcelona on the fifth day of the movement to protest against the conviction of nine separatist leaders for the 2017 secession attempt. How are we reacting in Madrid?
With our correspondent in Madrid, François Musseau
What is Pedro Sanchez waiting for? What is the Spanish Prime Minister waiting for? This is the question posed by the center-right daily El Mundo, which sums up the division in Madrid. For the socialist Pedro Sanchez is engaged in a big gap, practicing at the same time a great firmness and also a great moderation.
A safe screw?
Five nights of violence in large cities in Catalonia, five columns that converged Friday to Barcelona with dozens of wounded and people arrested. However, no question - for now - for Pedro Sanchez to give a safe screw.
This is what the two great leaders of the Right are telling him insistently. The conservative Pablo Casado demands that the central government put Catalonia under guardianship to stop what he sees as an unacceptable rebellion. More virulent still, the liberal Albert Rivera pushes him, to apply the law of security citizen, in other words to give more power to the police. And this, not to mention the extreme right party Vox that speaks squarely of " decree the state of exception ". On the left, only the leader of Podemos, Pablo Iglesias, is in favor of a dialogue with the independence camp to find " a political solution to the conflict ".
The question of violence is in everyone's mind.
[Reportage] The separatists and the violence 19/10/2019 - by Elise Gazengel Play
A " staging "
For Benoît Pellistrandi, historian, specialist of Spain, all this fits in an electoral context: " The idea was to make a show of force, to show that Catalonia is behind its independence leaders. There was also the staging of the unity of the Catalan nation. These events are absolutely not spontaneous. They follow a tactical and strategic plan of the various independence movements, but the novelty is that there appears to be a radical and violent movement that is disrupting this independence scenario. "
" Do these events really respond to a general movement of the Catalan population? This is not sure , says Benoît Pellistrandi. Let's not forget, we are in the election campaign, because on November 10 there will be general elections throughout Spain and therefore in Catalonia. And that will weigh very heavily in the course of this campaign. And the most radical movements have every interest in derailing the Catalan situation to force the government of Pedro Sanchez, socialist government, to make a misstep. The idea is that if the Socialist Party makes a mistake, separatists will think they have won a victory against the Spanish state. "
The question that arises is whether this movement is going to be sustainable? Nothing is less certain given the strategic divergences that exist within the independence movement as Benoit Pellistrandi tells us: " There is a real strategic divergence between the two great independence movements that are the party of Quim Torra and the party of Oriol Junqueras. For example, in the Parliament of Catalonia, Quim Torra announced that his intention was to carry out a new referendum of self-determination. His government did not know it. And the heads are literally decomposed. [...] What we must see is that if we have these freak demonstrations, they are also a form of intimidation against those who are not independent and who do not dare to manifest their hostility to this independentist project which is in addition a unilateral project . "
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