Catalan independence activist Carles Puigdemont now lives in the Pyrénées-Orientales. He intends to campaign from this region bordering Catalonia.
He said he would return to Spain if he had a chance of being elected president of Catalonia by the regional parliament. The current Catalan president Pere Aragonès, leader of the independence party Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), announced last week the holding of early elections in Catalan Parliament on May 12. This announcement came on the eve of the adoption in Madrid by Spanish deputies of an amnesty law for separatists.