It was the Spanish national holiday on Friday and there was no shortage of talking points. Mariano Rajoy, the opposition leader from the Partido Popular had urged citizens to get their Spanish flags out and to “respect the symbols”. The latter was a reference to the recent burning of images of the monarchs, which has been happening of late, mainly in Catalonia. Carod Rovira from the ERC (a left wing Catalan party) compared Rajoy’s speech to old propaganda newsreels of the Franco dictatorship. Felip Puig from CiU (a centre-right Catalan party) urged Catalans to turn up for work on the holiday. He also said Rajoy's speech was on a par with a recent Juventudes Socialistas (Young Socialists) video because both are going to lead the country back to the bipolarisation of the “Two Spains”, which damaged the harmony (of the transitional post-Franco era).
kaleborroka
The divisions in Spanish society between right and left, monarchists and republicans as well as those between pro-centralist and various nationalist factions seem as deep as ever. This makes the recent campaign, backed by the PP, to add lyrics to Spain’s wordless national anthem look pretty trivial. Maybe they just have a weird sense of humour. Government minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos said he would support the idea “if a wide-ranging consensus could be reached”. Probably not going to happen any time soon then. Perhaps finding a solution to other internal matters such as the Kale borroka (civil disturbances linked to Basque nationalism), which led to flaming battles between nationalists and police in the centre of San Sebastian on Friday are a bit more pressing.

Ghosts of Spain