Feijóo reaffirms himself in his speech on languages: "We will defend all our languages ​​in our own way"

Instead of giving in to pressure from the right, Alberto Núñez Feijóo has reaffirmed himself this Monday in his tepid speech on language policy, one day after having dodged a new photo of Colón at the demonstration in Barcelona in favor of increasing the Spanish teaching in Catalonia.

The leader of the PP has criticized the Government of Pedro Sánchez for "consenting" and "inhibiting" in the face of "shameless contempt" for the sentences that require 25% of classes in Spanish in Catalan classrooms, and has promised that if to the Government he will not do the same.

But he has also sent a message to the hardest sectors of the right and to his competitors from Vox and Ciudadanos, claiming his own path in this matter.

"We will defend all our languages ​​with the instruments of the rule of law, and we will do it our way,"

Feijóo has stated at an informative breakfast in Madrid.

“Intolerance is not fought with more intolerance.

We love freedom and we want to hear it in all our languages, and of course in the common language of our State”.

“In the end, it's about complying with the Constitution, everyone's.

By the way, with great support in Catalonia”, said Feijóo, who spoke on

on this matter in his brief speech introducing Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla, president of Andalusia, who was the protagonist of the breakfast.

He has done so in the face of the criticism with which he has woken up this morning in the conservative press for his "ambiguous" position on the defense of Castilian in Catalonia, after having been absent from the demonstration on Sunday and having defended in his closing speech of the inter-parliamentary meeting of the PP on "linguistic friendliness" in Catalan education.

This Monday, Feijóo has also answered those on the right who question his commitment to Castilian in Catalonia, and has promised to comply with the sentences of the courts.

“Some want to make Spanish a foreign language in Catalonia, and the Government consents.

We won't.

Some want to make the Catalan school a laboratory from which to promote impoverishing monolingualism, and the Government tolerates it.

We won't.

Some shamelessly disregard the sentences, and the Government is inhibited.

We will not do it”, he stressed.

But expressions such as “impoverishing monolingualism” and “linguistic cordiality” stand out in his speech, as well as his emphasis on equating Catalan and Spanish as constitutional languages ​​to defend, something that raises blisters in some sectors of the right.

The Galician trilingual model

The leader of the PP is consistent in this matter with his own experience as president of an autonomous community with its own language.

His model for Catalonia, as official PP sources explain, is precisely to export the Galician model.

In Galicia, Feijóo imposed a trilingual model of Galician, Spanish and English, with a percentage of 33% in each language.

In Catalonia, where there is a model of linguistic immersion, the debate is because the Generalitat refuses to allow a minimum of 25% of classes in Spanish, as established by different court rulings.

With Feijóo's plan, Spanish would increase in Catalonia to 33%, but this is not the proposal of some sectors of the right, who ask that there be itineraries to study only in Spanish and that parents have the freedom to choose.

In his brief journey as leader of the PP – he has been at the head of the party for almost six months – Feijóo has also flirted with the most fiery discourse, such as when he said that in Catalonia there is an

linguistic”, but now, even though his competitors were waving the flag of Spanishness in Barcelona, ​​he is resisting confrontational rhetoric, and is opting for mild words.

At the moment, in the PP the most centralist sectors maintain a low profile in the face of this speech by Feijóo.

No one wants to mess around in the yard.

The president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, has conceded that perhaps more clarity is needed, but she has also defended Feijóo this Monday.

“The PP has to be clear, if it is not being clear enough, it will have to repeat it, make it that clear.

It is our obligation to comply with judicial rulings and the Constitution, we must not let justice say something so basic”, she has expressed in an interview on

.

“I have absolute confidence in what President Feijóo says.

Everything is questioned, you have to give him a truce, a margin, he has just arrived ”.

The popular leader has the firm support on this issue of the more moderate barons, such as Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla, who has been seen this Monday in Madrid together with the popular leader at a breakfast in which numerous former PP ministers have appeared.

Among them, the former Vice President of the Government Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, who did not usually attend this type of event since she left politics.

The general feeling in the PP is that things are going well with Feijóo, and the popular leader has enough internal

to make a speech about languages ​​that is risky for the right.

The centrist strategy is also in the background.

Moreno Bonilla recalled it in front of Feijóo this Monday: “There is a large highway through the center and, if we know how to take it, we will have large majorities”.

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