• Atentados 17-A.Torra dedicates the tribute to Puigdemont and this fuels the conspiracy theory
  • Album: This has been the floral offering in tribute to the victims of the attack on La Rambla in Barcelona, ​​two years later

"On the second anniversary of 17-A we express our respect and remembrance to the victims and family. The contained and serene response of the citizens of Ripoll continues to accompany us. Thanks to all the people and institutions involved in the new model of coexistence." These were the words that the City Council of Ripoll wanted to represent on Saturday the feeling of a population affected to the deepest by the attacks of Barcelona and Cambrils of 2017. If the Rambla was the zero zone of the massacre, this town of 10,700 inhabitants that day became the focus of misunderstanding: the terrorists who made up the cell were well known in Ripoll, where they were neighbors.

"The first impact was like an earthquake." Miquel Rovira was the first deputy mayor of the City of Ripoll on the day of the events and thus expressed his reaction when he appeared in the commission of investigation of the attacks of the Parliament . The words had been pronounced by the Director of Social Services in a first conversation after the events, and Rovira made her own. "These guys were 100% integrated, they went out, they had friends, they played football, they participated in public life," he recalled. The councilor learned about what happened on television, and his daughter, who was present, could not believe that the boy who was in a photograph as the fugitive Rambla terrorist had been his classmate in class. "To this day I believe that nobody yet explains why this happened in Ripoll."

The residents of Ripoll left the perplexity determined to reinforce the tools of integration and coexistence in the locality, and in this they continue. Another thing is what the polls have evidenced in the last municipal elections. If the xenophobic Platform per Catalunya party attended the elections in 2015 and only 122 votes were made, in 2019 there were two racist parties that presented lists, Som Catalans and Front Nacional de Catalunya . The first was made with 112 votes, the second added 503. Already in campaign, the other parties were conjured to raise a sanitary cordon against the racism of these parties.

The terrorist profiles "ended up causing a social fracture, which called into question the social policy model that had been implemented so far," admitted Bernat Valls , general director of Civic Action , in the same commission. Now it will be a pioneering socio-educational plan that seeks to improve coexistence and where respect for diversity and personal identity is promoted. It will be the spearhead to prevent further radicalizations.

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