Tens of thousands of people who want the Catalonia region to become independent from Spain held a major rally across the border, in southeastern France, Saturday.
Catalan separatists are keen to draw international attention to their fight, and the rally in Perpignan aimed to be a show of strength. The rally’s slogan was, "The republic at the center of the world" – a reference to the desired Catalan republic.
Perpignan lies about 200 kilometers (120 miles) by road from the Catalan capital, Barcelona. Holding the event in French territory allowed former Catalan regional president Carles Puigdemont to attend, too. It was the first time the former Catalan president had ventured so close to the Spanish frontier since he fled to Brussels to escape prosecution, following a failed secession bid that sparked Spain's worst political crisis in decades.
Puigdemont’s political alliance, Together for Catalonia, will be competing for votes with other separatist parties in an upcoming regional election in Catalonia. No date has been set for the ballot.
Former French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, who made an unsuccessful bid to become mayor of Barcelona, Catalonia's main city, denounced the official reception accorded to Puigdemont, calling him a "political leader who fled Spain" and was a wanted figure in his country.
In October, nine other separatist leaders who remained in Spain were sentenced to heavy jail terms for sedition, sparking weeks of angry protests in Catalonia, some of which turned violent.
Previously Puigdemont had not risked traveling to France, where police and the courts work closely with Madrid. But that changed recently when he was granted immunity as a member of the European Parliament.
The rally comes at a sensitive time for Catalonia where Puigdemont's successor, Quim Torra, has announced early regional elections due to a clash between the two separatist parties that run the wealthy northeastern part of Spain.
One is Puigdemont's Together for Catalonia (JxC) while the other is the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), which is headed by his former deputy Oriol Junqueras, who is currently serving 13 years in prison over the failed independence bid.
The tensions stem from strategic differences over how to advance the separatist agenda, with both parties struggling for the leadership of the independence movement.