Thousands of Spanish police officers took to the streets of central Barcelona this Saturday morning to demand parity between the levels of their salaries and those of the Catalan and Basque police forces, the Mossos d'Esquadra and the Ertzaintza. At one point, a group of demonstrators interrupted a journalist from Catalan public broadcaster TV3 during a live connection to the channel's main daytime news bulletin, from the central square of Plaça Catalunya.
The group of policemen stood behind the reporter and, while she delivered her report on the demonstration, began to shout and chant, waving banners and sounding car horns. There was so much noise that on more than one occasion the journalist tripped up in her delivery.
The protest was attended by the leader of the Cs (Citizens) party, Albert Rivera, as well as the head of the Catalan PP (Popular Party), Xavier García Albiol. The demonstrators marched behind the slogan "Parity now. Salary justice", and the police agents and their relatives waved the flags of Spain and some of its autonomous regions, including a few Catalan senyeres.