The Minister of Education accuses the PP of "encouraging an anti-Catalan sentiment" for joining the demonstration in defense of Castilian

The Minister of Education, Pilar Alegría, accused the PP on Wednesday of "encouraging an anti-Catalan sentiment" for supporting the demonstration last Sunday in Barcelona in defense of Spanish as the vehicular language at school.

This march, called by several associations that defend bilingualism, was attended by the

of the popular, Cuca Gamarra, as well as the leaders of Vox, Santiago Abascal, and Ciudadanos, Inés Arrimadas.

Neither the PSC nor En Comú Podem supported it.

The demonstration demanded that Castilian, and not only Catalan, be also considered the vehicular language —that is, that it be used to teach some subject, beyond the Castilian Language— in the schools of Catalonia, in compliance with numerous sentences that This has been established in recent years.

During the government control session in Congress, after the PP deputy Sandra Moneo accused the minister of being an "accomplice", due to her "inaction", of the Generalitat's language policy, Alegría replied: "You You did not go to Catalonia on Sunday thinking of the Catalan families, you went with the sole objective of haranguing division and confrontation.

You went to that demonstration, holding the arm of Mr. Abascal, because what you want is to return to the Catalonia of 2017 and by the way encourage an anti-Catalan sentiment to see if that way you collect some electoral revenue in other territories.

Moneo had attacked the Government's attitude by appealing precisely to the demonstration that last Sunday brought together several thousand people in Barcelona (2,800 according to the Guàrdia Urbana, 120,000 according to the organizers).

The PP deputy stated that this was not "a protest against anyone, but in favor of linguistic rights."

And she accused the Executive of doing nothing to stop a policy "that expels Castilian from the classrooms against the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) and, what is worse, against the Constitution."

The minister hid behind the fact that the court ruling that requires a minimum of 25% of classes to be taught in Spanish is pending a question of constitutionality that the Catalan court has presented to the Constitutional Court.

The TSJC understands that the new law approved by the Parliament to avoid the obligation of 25% of Spanish may transgress the Fundamental Law.

Alegría stressed that this initiative before the Constitutional Court has been backed by the State Attorney's Office.

The associations in defense of bilingualism, however, accuse the Government of not having brought the Catalan law before the Constitutional Court itself, which could have paralyzed its application.

The echoes of the demonstration last Sunday in Barcelona have traveled throughout the plenary session of this week's Congress, with several initiatives by the opposition to charge against the Government's position.

Vox and Ciudadanos have also taken the opportunity to charge against the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, for not attending the march and defending a policy of "linguistic cordiality" that he has not specified.

The PP has supported the harsh criticism of the Executive, but has avoided entering into controversy with the other formations of the right-wing bloc.

Alegría, on the other hand, has taken advantage of the PP's question to ironize that Feijóo wanted to avoid "a Colón 2" [the photo of the leaders of PP, Ciudadanos and Vox in Madrid's Plaza de Colón in 2019] and "played his favorite game : hideout".