The fracture within the independence movement has moved this Thursday to the traditional tribute at the Fossar de les Moreres, on the eve of the Diada, with two competing calls separated by just half an hour: that of Aliança Catalana, at 5:00 p.m., and that of organizations around the CUP, initially scheduled at 5:30 p.m. Some 600 people called by Aliança first occupied the Fossar, while some 2,400 called by the pro-independence left waited a few meters away, separated by a police cordon. Part of the center of Barcelona has been shielded by a large force of the Mossos d'Esquadra. Orriols has called for “a Catalan Catalonia” in a speech loaded with ethnic-supremacist content and the police have arrested three alternative left activists.
The leader of Aliança arrived in the area around 4:50 p.m., amidst great expectation and surrounded by supporters. After entering the Fossar, Orriols walked through the adjacent streets and stopped to greet managers and workers from several businesses in the area. Around her, a dozen people she trusts and from private security have turned the leader into an almost inaccessible figure, surrounded at all times by a cordon that made its way between sympathizers,
The coincidence of both calls has turned the Born neighborhood into an image of the divisions that the independence movement is going through. Between proclamations against the CUP and against Spain, the Aliança Catalana supporters occupied the Fossar for almost an hour longer than expected, while the radical left rebuked them from the other side of the police cordon.
All access to the Fossar area has been cut off and the only entrance enabled has been via l'Espaseria street, also guarded by Mossos d'Esquadra agents. Several businesses in the area have lowered their shutters due to the tension in the street, although no incidents have been recorded beyond verbal confrontations between both groups and some police charges. The Mossos unit has ended, in addition to the three detainees, with four people investigated for public disorder. Among them, two women located on a terrace in Santa Maria del Mar with two suitcases, one of which contained a fire extinguisher loaded with paint supposedly prepared for launches.
In his speech at Fossar, Orriols called for a “Catalan Catalonia” in a speech full of supremacist epics in which he appealed to the survival of the Catalan people and the defense of their identity. “Against all odds, we still respond to the name of Catalans and reclaim the values that our ancestors defended with death,” proclaimed the leader of Aliança Catalana, who has presented the history of Catalonia as a succession of episodes of resistance.
“We could have disbanded, but we chose to survive,” Orriols continued, still with visible bandages from the burns he suffered in a domestic accident a few days ago. After praising the “stoic resistance” of the Catalans and ensuring that it “filled chronicles and half of Europe”, the leader has claimed the “legitimate ownership” of the Catalans over “our lands”, within her defense of a “Catalan Catalonia”. “We have not come to be politically correct or to win the Nobel Peace Prize, we have come to save Catalonia,” he claimed.
While the leader was giving her speech, a small group of the radical left entered the square and threw colored powder. After a few moments of tension, the police reduced the group and took them out of the square. Around 8:00 p.m., the area was considered normal.
The vigil of the Diada has left other moments of tension in Sant Cugat. According to Vox, a councilor from his party in the city has suffered an attack near one of his information tents and has had to be treated by an ambulance.
