A thousand people according to the police (3000 according to the organizers) demonstrated on Saturday in Perpignan to support a project to establish in a former convent in the city a secondary school teaching in Catalan blocked by the RN town hall of Perpignan.
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"Avui i dema, l'escola en catala (Today and tomorrow, the school in Catalan, Editor's note)"
chanted the demonstrators as they walked towards the town hall, access to which was blocked.
Many children took part in the procession, several of whom carried at arm's length placards also proclaiming in the regional language,
"we want a high school"
or
"a high school in Catalan"
.
The conflict, which opposes families who are supporters of immersive teaching in Catalan to the mayor RN Louis Aliot, erupted when the municipality recently decided to pre-empt the former Sainte-Clair convent in which the La Bressola school wanted to open three classes to back to school 2022.
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"We are here to ask Louis Aliot to cancel this preemption,
" said Eva Bertana, director of La Bressola, regretting a drop in the town hall's subsidy for its structure.
"We also want to ask the institutions to help us create a college and a high school in Catalan in Perpignan, as it exists for other languages"
, added Ms. Bertana adding that this project concerned
"nearly a thousand school children who want to continue learning in Catalan ”
.
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“La Bressola is involved in politics, which I am not doing in this case. The town hall has been interested in this site (of the Saint-Clair convent, Editor's note) for several years already. The town planning rules are in this area, especially for a school, restrictive ”
, declared to AFP Louis Aliot alluding to the fact that the old building of the Poor Clares is located in a flood zone.
The mayor RN evokes
"a political operation led by Catalanist parties"
:
"We were already in discussion on other sites for this new establishment"
, he says, stressing that his municipality
"has been supporting this private school from the start"
.