Barcelona (AFP)

The unrest that took place on Wednesday on the sidelines of the Clasico Barça-Real Madrid in Barcelona, ​​marked by demonstrations by Catalan freelancers, resulted in ten arrests and the care of 64 wounded, local authorities said on Thursday.

The emergency medical services in the Catalonia region (north-eastern Spain) said they had treated 64 people, none of whom had serious injuries. According to these services, 39 out of 64 were police officers.

For its part, a spokesman for the regional police provided an assessment of 56 injured officers, including two with broken bones.

According to the police spokesman, ten people were arrested, notably for disturbing public order and throwing objects against the police.

More than 3,000 police and private security agents had been deployed to the most important game in Spanish football, because the independence platform Tsunami Democratique had called to demonstrate near Camp Nou.

The match was postponed in October when Barcelona was the scene of major protests but also of a series of unprecedented violent clashes, in reaction to the sentencing to heavy prison terms of nine independence leaders for the 2017 secession attempt.

On the sidelines of the Clasico, thousands of independent Catalan demonstrators mobilized, cutting off traffic at the gates of the stadium. The atmosphere was rather festive until a group of radical supporters of FC Barcelona, ​​close to extreme right movements, joined them and the police took action to disperse them.

Protesters sprayed police with stones, bottles and other objects and set up barricades with dumpsters, while law enforcement used their batons and fired foam bullets.

Inside the stadium, yellow balloons were thrown on the field and thousands of blue banners were brandished in the stands, at the call of Democratic Tsunami, with the slogan in English "Spain, sit and talk" ( "Spain, sit down and talk").

© 2019 AFP