Around 15,000 people gathered in central Madrid on Saturday to express their opposition to the amnesty law for Catalan separatists and demand the resignation of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.
A large sign showed Pedro Sanchez wearing a Hitler mustache, with a message written in English:
“Spain is no longer a democracy.
It is starting to be a dictatorship.
SOS Europe
,” noted AFP.
“Democracy is going badly, Sanchez has no limits
,” insists Ana Garcia, a 50-year-old lawyer, who criticizes
the “exchange of votes”
that the Prime Minister wants to carry out to stay in power.
Read alsoIn Spain, the Catalan independence party Junts trips up Pedro Sanchez
This demonstration, where representatives of right-wing and far-right parties were present, was called after the green light given by the Justice Committee of the Congress of Deputies to the amnesty law.
The text must very soon be submitted to a vote in the lower house of Parliament, before being examined by the Senate.
The amnesty law for hundreds of Catalan separatists has been the central theme of Spanish politics since the early legislative elections in July, which did not allow either of the two major parties - Mr. Sanchez's Socialists and the Popular Party ( right) of Alberto Núñez Feijóo - to have an absolute majority, leaving them at the mercy of regional parties.
The two separatist parties in Catalonia (north-east) then made an amnesty measure for their activists involved in the region's aborted secession attempt in 2017 the price of their support for Mr. Sanchez to be returned to power , which he accepted.