Carles Puigdemont, face of Catalan independence

Arrested Thursday in Italy on the basis of an arrest warrant issued by the Spanish courts, Carles Puigdemont has become the face of Catalan independence since the attempted secession of Catalonia he led in 2017.

“Enough. Amnesty is the only way. Self-determination the only solution. By your side Carles”, was quick to react on Twitter the current Catalan President Pere Aragonès to the announcement of the arrest of Mr. Puigdemont, who briefly occupied the post from January 2016 to October 2017 before being dismissed from his post by the Spanish government.

Married to a Romanian journalist by whom he had two daughters, Mr. Puigdemont was however almost unknown – outside the independence circles – when he arrived at the head of the Catalan regional government.

Before his election as head of Catalonia, his only political experience was that of mayor of the independence stronghold of Girona, a city of 100,000 inhabitants.

Barely a year and a half after coming to power, this 58-year-old former journalist with the thick helmet of brown hair had organized with his government, despite the judicial ban, a self-determination referendum punctuated by police violence that was followed, a few weeks later, by a stillborn declaration of independence.

The Spanish government, then led by the conservatives, reacted by putting the region under trusteeship, removing Puigdemont from office and arresting the main leaders of the movement.

Flight to Belgium

“To all those who wanted to denigrate us, to silence us, I tell them that we will defend ourselves, and well”, he had declared from Belgium, where he had fled to escape prosecution.

He had since settled in Waterloo, south of Brussels.

Born in Amer, a mountainous village of 2,200 inhabitants 100 km from Barcelona, ​​where his family still runs his father’s pastry shop, Carles Puigdemont, the second of eight siblings, has independence in his blood.

“In Catalonia, many have become separatists by allergic reaction to the politics of Madrid. But not him, he has always been”, explains the poet and chronicler Antoni Puigverd, who was one of his relatives.

He was elected MEP in May 2019.

By leaving Catalonia for Belgium, this unpredictable man had abandoned many of his elders “ministers”, arrested and then sentenced to prison for sedition in 2019 during a trial held without him.

The nine jailed separatists were pardoned in June by the Spanish government of Pedro Sánchez.

Sometimes taxed by his detractors of “fugitive” or from “cowardly”, Carles Puigdemont had continued to occupy the political field with his party Together for Catalonia (JxC).

He had first been replaced at the head of the region by his dolphin Quim Roast, before Pere Aragonès, a moderate separatist, be elected regional president in May after elections which had brought the separatist parties back to power.

Since the election of Mr. Aragonès, relations between Madrid and Barcelona have calmed down, allowing negotiations to resume last week in an attempt to find a political solution to the crisis.

Reference-feedproxy.google.com

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