THOUSANDS of Catalan independence supporters filled the streets of Barcelona to put pressure on Spain’s embattled Prime Minister to accept their demands.
According to the city’s municipal police force, Guàrdia Urbana, some 115,000 people showed up to a rally on Monday, though organisers said the figures was much higher at 800,000, reports El Nacional.
The demonstration was organised by the Assemblea Nacional Catalana (ANC) which hopes to pile pressure on Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to accede to pro-Catalan independence parties demands.
They want the socialist party leader to promise amnesty for exiled politician Carles Puigdemont, who fled to Brussels after holding a wildcat referendum which triggered a fierce response from the Spanish government.
Nine of those involved have since been pardoned though Puigdemont and his supporters still wish to see the authorities promise he will remain a free man if he returns to Spain.
Catalan nationalists also want the PM to get the EU to adopt Catalan as one of its official languages and say they will block him from forming a government if he fails.
Catalan nationalists were made kingmakers after an election earlier this year produced inconclusive results.
Sánchez could yet hold onto power, with the backing of the two main Catalan nationalist parties, while the centre and far right remain effectively locked out of power because they have refused concessions to separatist parties.
The clock is ticking for the Prime Minister to gain the full backing of the smaller parties, or he could be forced to call another election.
El Nacional described the demonstration, held on Catalonia’s national day, as “placid” and said all major “pro-independence civil society bodies” signed a pact for the movement.
