by Jordi Garcia-Petit / 07.11.2020
Pedro Sánchez (i) and Emmanuel Macron (r), whose government distanced itself from the ‘processist’ manifesto of the French senators, in a file image / EFE
One of the most repeated slander about Spain by the secessionists is, according to them, the “repressive singularity” of the Spanish State in the European context. Let us remember that they call “repression” to having prevented them from separating Catalonia from Spain by the violent means of unilateralism. And that they continue to call “repression” any judicial procedure for their criminal actions, even if the procedure has nothing to do with the procés, but affects one of its characters.
There is no such singularity; on the contrary, Spain would be distinguished by the guaranteeing quality of its Justice and the liberalism of its democracy. Let’s check this through a quick comparison exercise between some of Spain’s responses to separatism and, for example, those that, in the face of such a challenge, presumably, France would have given, part of whose territory the secessionists include in that entelechy they call “Països Catalans”.
In the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the constitution of the French Republic, President Emmanuel Macron pointed out that “the indivisible Republic does not admit any separatist adventure”. He was referring first of all to “Islamist separatism”, but without excluding (in the idea of rejection) other forms of separatism, including the territorial one.
France with as much or more regional diversity than Spain recognizes it less and has much less decentralization. The French Regional Council, a modality of autonomy, lacks autonomous legislative power, has limited management powers and very limited budgetary resources. A Regional Council could not have put, by far, the resources of all kinds that the Generalitat has put – and maintains – in the promotion of separatism.
If the Plenary of a Regional Council had approved a resolution declaring that “it will not be subject to the decisions of the institutions of the French State” – which is what the Parliament did on November 9, 2015, with respect to the institutions of the Spanish state- -, it would have been dissolved ipso facto by Decree of the Council of Ministers of the Republic.
If the president of a Regional Council had dared to voice the atrocities of separatist intent that we have had to hear so often from Quim Torra, he would have been deposed and, perhaps, prosecuted.
Neither the “consultation” (semi-tolerated) of 9-N, 2014, on whether Catalonia should be a State and if that State should be independent, nor the “vote” of the illegal referendum of 1-0 of 2017 on the independence of Catalonia would have been possible in France. Both events referring to any of its regions would have infringed the Constitution of 1958 and the laws of the Republic with the consequence that the powers of the French State would have acted to enforce legality.
Can anyone honestly believe that the reaction of President Emmanuel Macron to the separatist challenge of September and October 2017 would have been different from that of Felipe VI as Head of State in his message of October 3 denouncing “the inadmissible disloyalty towards the powers of the State “, and recalling the need to “ensure constitutional order”? Only the separatists here immersed in their fanciful bubble can imagine a European head of state “complacent” with disruptive practices.
France would also have made legitimate use of public force to enforce legality on the street, which includes compliance with court decisions, both on October 1 and in any violent events related to separatism that occurred. As it has done against the vandalism radicalism of minority groups of the “yellow vests”, a movement that could invoke a social legitimacy that separatism lacks.
From the comparison it follows that the secessionists would also have to call France a “repressive state”, as well as any other European state that does not meekly accept its territorial disintegration. Since that state does not exist, they are condemned to frustration until they abandon self-deception and stop spreading it to others.
And without a doubt, the Federal Republic of Germany would also be a repressive state, whose Basic Law of 1949 would consider high treason, punishable by permanent reviewable prison, the attempt to unilaterally separate one of its territories.
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