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Yesterday, Thursday, November 9, against the backdrop of the PSOE-Junts pact, tragic news shocked the country: the well-known former politician Alejo Vidal-Quadras, 78, who continues to participate in television programs as a talk show host and collaborates in various media, suffered an assassination attempt in Madrid. As he was walking down Núñez de Balboa Street to his home at noon, an individual got off a motorcycle and shot him in the face at point-blank range, piercing his jaw. Rushed to the Gregorio Marañón hospital with a large hemorrhage, he underwent surgery for a double fracture of the jaw and, according to the latest medical report, he is stable and his life is not in danger. The scare was immense for his family, especially for his current wife, Amparo Fuentes Ferragut, who has not left his side.

His political career as president of the PP of Catalonia and later founder of Vox, as well as vice-president of the European Parliament, is well known, as he was considered the "scourge" of Catalan independence.

Alejo Vidal-Quadras, during an interview with EFE, in 2014.

However, little is known about his private life, as he is a very discreet man, although he belongs to one of the most illustrious and wealthy families in Catalonia, in which in addition to financiers, there are nobles, intellectuals and famous artists. This is the case of his uncle, also named Alejo Vidal Quadras, with a studio in the iconic Parisian neighborhood of Montmartre, whose brushes immortalized the most outstanding personalities of the twentieth century. From royals, such as King Umberto of Italy, the Duchess of Windsor or Rainier and Grace of Monaco to actors of the stature of Audrey Hepburn, Yul Brynner or Marilyn Monroe. Also billionaires such as Giovanni Agnelli, Baron Thyssen or Aristotle Onassis, who commissioned him to paint a portrait for his lover, the soprano Maria Callas.

Alejo Vidal-Quadras, former president of the PP of Catalonia and founder of VOX, seriously injured in Madrid after being shot in the faceEmergencies Madrid

The politician is also related to important Catalan aristocrats, such as the Counts of Caldas de Montbuy and the famous designer Agatha Ruiz de la Prada, who is the Marchioness of Castelldosrius, Baroness of Saint Pau and Grandee of Spain. Not forgetting intellectuals, such as the historian Carlos Sanllehy and even athletes such as Alfonso Vidal Quadras Rosales, considered one of the best throwers in the history of Spanish athletics.

The family is originally from Sitges, although they emigrated to America where they amassed a considerable fortune in the 1839th century. The pioneer was José María Vidal Robert, a fisherman by profession, married to Josefa Quadras, who settled in the Cuban town of Maracaibo, where he opened a small business. In a short time he became rich thanks to the cultivation of tobacco, and above all to his financial activity, since the Vidal Quadras firm became one of the main mercantile and financial companies on the island. In <>, his sons Manuel and Alejo decided to return to Barcelona, where they set up the Vidal Quadras bank, considered the second most important in Catalonia at the end of the century. However, his descendants Carlos, Luis and Alejo decided to break the link with finance, and transferred the business to the bank of Barcelona, with the clause that no worker would lose his job.

Son of Alejo Vidal-Quadras Villavecchia and Gloria Roca Norton, the conservative politician studied physical sciences at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, became a doctor and later a professor of atomic and nuclear physics. But at the historic moment of the transition, he was tempted to enter politics, and joined Unió, a Christian Democratic party that, allied to Jordi Pujol's Convergence, would become part of the CIU. However, Vidal-Quadras did not agree with nationalism, to the point that it is said that it bothered him to see photos of Companys and Macià hanging in the headquarters. So he opted to switch to the PP in 1991, becoming leader of the Catalan Popular Party until 1996, after the pact of Aznar's Majestic with Jordi Pujol that brought him to the government, he was removed from the party.

Vidal-Quadras has been married twice: his first wife belonged to the aristocratic family of the Caralt Munne, Counts of Caralt, a title granted by Alfonso XIII to José de Caralt, senator and Minister of Finance. Two children were born from this marriage: Alejo, who has held important positions in the financial sector at the head of the private equity giant KKR and in the Mid-market, and Fiona, who is a journalist, has worked at TV3 and TVE and is currently director of the film production company Suspense Entertainment. His second wife is Amparo Fuertes Ferragut, with whom he had another child. Of Valencian origin, his name came to the fore when one of his sisters, Pilar, who was ambassador to Zimbabwe, died in 2012 in a traffic accident in Namibia.