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No-one can go outside due to the coronavirus lockdown, but nevertheless people around Catalonia - and beyond - staged a monumental protest this Wednesday night, loudly banging pots on their balconies while Spanish king Felipe VI was on television assuring a country where 558 people have died that the coronavirus pandemic is "temporary".

The cassolada protest, called by the Catalan cultural group Òmnium, aimed to express rejection for the monarchy and in particular to denounce the king "for corruption and a lack of solidarity towards the grave public health crisis we are experiencing". In the last fortnight, the Spanish royal family has been at the centre of an alleged 100 million euro corruption scandal and just last weekend, it was revealed in the UK press that the huge sum in question was intended to be part of Felipe VI's inheritance from his father. 

Wednesday night's balcony protest ended, in some places, with the singing of the popular Italian folk song Bella Ciao and some residents turned it up loud on their speakers. In the midst of the percussive cacophony, shouts of "Mori el Borbó" (death to the Bourbon) were also heard.

The pots and pans banging also reached beyond Catalonia, and was heard in Madrid neighbourhoods such as Imperial, Legazpi and Lavapiés, and cities such as Vigo (Galicia) and Bilbao (Basque Country).

This is actually the second pots and pans protest this Wednesday, the fifth day of lockdown in Catalonia. At 12 noon, a cassolada protest was held to protest the scandal of Juan Carlos I's fortune in a Swiss bank account and, specifically, to ask the former king to donate the 100 million euro sum which he received from the Saudi roal house king to the fight against coronavirus.

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