The former separatist president of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, new MEP, announced Tuesday that he would go in February to Perpignan, in the Pyrenees-Orientales, a town close geographically and culturally to Catalonia.
"We are planning an intervention in Perpignan (...) We want it to be the second half of February," replied Carles Puigdemont in a radio interview, one day after entering the European Parliament, authorized by a court decision. 25 kilometers from the Franco-Spanish border on the Mediterranean coast, Perpignan was the capital of the historic province of Roussillon, which belonged to the Kingdom of Aragon, which also included today's Catalonia.
"I will feel at home"
Spain ceded Roussillon to France in 1659 by the Treaty of the Pyrenees, but Catalan regionalism continued to regard it as "Catalonia of the north".
In Perpignan, "I will feel at home, walking on Catalan lands in northern Catalonia", said Carles Puigdemont, targeted by a Spanish arrest warrant for his participation in the secession attempt in Catalonia in late 2017. But the former head of the Catalan separatists was able to access his seat as an MEP on Monday after a decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union.
His parliamentary immunity allows Carles Puigdemont to travel to France, a country he had hitherto avoided for his close judicial cooperation with Spain. Spanish justice has asked the European Parliament to lift this immunity because of the arrest warrant which covers it.
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- Catalonia
- Languedoc-Roussillon
- Perpignan
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