On October 3rd, 2017, the Catalan independence movement held an historic mobilization to defend the result of the 1-O referendum, blighted by police violence, and that night, Spanish king Felipe VI broke his expected neutrality to defend the unity of Spain and harshly criticize the pro-independence leaders for violating the Constitution in a televised speech. On the sixth anniversary of those events, the Catalan president-in-exile, Carles Puigdemont, has shared a photo of the monarch upside down accompanied by a message. "Felipe VI decided to put the Crown at the head of the repression and sent a clear message directly to the Catalan population: that he would "go get 'em". The latter phrase, 'a por ellos' in the original version, was a well-known song sung by Spanish police assigned to 2017 duties in Catalonia.
Puigdemont also wanted to place that speech in the context of events, stating that the monarch's message was both a response to the success of the referendum and also to "the capacity of Catalan society to paralyze the whole country on 3rd October". In that regard, the president also shared images of the massive mobilization that day in several Catalan cities, and also a video showing a mass of people chanting "The streets will always be ours", one of the most popular slogans in 2017.
Felipe VI assigns Pedro Sánchez with task of attempting to form a government
On the sixth anniversary of that speech, Felipe VI has assigned acting PM Pedro Sánchez with the task of attempting to form a government, after the failure of the investiture of the PP candidate, Alberto Núñez Feijóo. For the Socialist leader to succeed in gaining the confidence of the Spanish Congress, he will have to reach difficult accords with the Catalan pro-independence parties, in a negotiation process that officially starts this Tuesday, although positions have been getting closer in recent weeks.
Sánchez has explained that in the coming days he will meet with the spokespeople or presidents of the parliamentary groups in the Congress of Deputies, but he has closed the door to meeting the leaders of parties if those individuals do not have a seat in the lower house. Thus, there will be no meeting between Sánchez and Puigdemont.