Five years after the referendum and the declaration of independence without a future, the divorce is consummated between the street and the elected separatists. This Sunday, far from the smiling and festive human tides of before the Covid, 150,000 angry people (according to the municipal police) marched in Barcelona, under a moist heat, to demand independence and above all to denounce the inaction of the government. Catalan. “President Pere Aragones is neither a republican nor a separatist. He sold his soul to Madrid. He is a traitor”, denounces Corina, a young retiree. Absent from the event, the head of the Catalan government is the target of all criticism. “We have the enemy at home. It is Madrid’s Trojan horse”, regrets Joan her husband. By accepting the dialogue offered by Madrid and by renouncing a strategy of rupture in favor of a more moderate attitude, the leader has alienated the most determined fringe of independence.
“Catalan politicians tell us that they want independence like us” regrets Mar, 53, “but when they go to Madrid they do the opposite. They let us down. We’re fed up.”
If the determination of the demonstrators is intact, many no longer hide a form of disillusionment. “I have always protested”, explains Joan Maria. “But now you have to be lucid, I am 71 years old and do not believe that I will one day see independence”.