ARCHIVED - Catalan separatist demonstrators block the France-Spain border for 23 hours

Pro-independence action continues despite separatists taking less than half the vote in the general election

After another day of separatist protests and disruption on major roads in Catalunya on Monday the French police have managed to reopen the AP-7 motorway at the border between Spain and France near La Junquera by breaking up barricades with the aid of tear gas.

The frontier had remained closed for almost 24 hours when the police moved in shortly before 8.00 on Tuesday morning and, without resorting to a charge, forcibly removed the protesters from the tarmac and began dismantling barricades and impromptu campsites which had been set up. On the Spanish side of the border, meanwhile, there remains a strong presence of the Mossos d’Esquadra, the regional police force of Catalunya.

This was the latest action coordinated by an anonymous platform group called “Tsunami Democràtic” (democratic tsunami) which is determined to press for an independence referendum by causing widespread disruption at major infrastructures in Catalunya, and which rose to prominence following the guilty verdicts passed on various separatist leaders during October. The group has called for three days of action following Sunday’s general election, buoyed by the level of support they mustered on 14^th October when they forced the cancellation or postponement of hundreds of flights at Barcelona-El Prat airport.

During Monday the closure of the AP-7 brought about tailbacks of around 20 kilometres on the N-II road and a further 7 km on the AP-7, with the losses caused by the delays to cargos of fresh fruit and vegetables estimated at around 4 million euros per day. On a typical day around 600 lorries make their way into northern Europe from the Region of Murcia on this route.

While the “democratic tsunami” continues with this kind of action, it is interesting to point out the results of voting in Sunday’s general election in the region of Catalunya. Despite gaining support in some areas, the separatist parties between them received considerably fewer than half of the votes cast – hardly a tsunami.

Of the 48 seats representing Catalunya 13 were taken by the ERC separatist party, 8 by JxCat and 2 by the CUP, making a total of 23 overtly separatist MPs in the next Spanish parliament, while on the other hand the Catalans elected 12 PSOE MPs, 7 from Unidas Podemos, 2 PP, 2 Vox and 2 Ciudadanos. The national parties generally held sway in the provinces of Barcelona and Tarragona, while in the more northern provinces of Lleida and Girona, which share a border with France, there was more support for the independence movement.

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