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Several hundred thousand people, according to the Urban Guard of Barcelona about 500,000, have responded this Saturday to the call from the Catalan government and the Barcelona City Council of the Catalan capital to come to the centre of the city to express their solidarity with the victims, their rejection of terrorism and their homage to all the public services that had fundamental roles on the tragic 17th August and the days that followed the attack in Barcelona and Cambrils. A task symbolised in a very special way by the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police).

Ahead of any other consideration, it is worth highlighting the civility that has presided over today's "No tinc por" ("I'm not afraid") march, in spite of the huge tension generated by those that intended to turn this Saturday's demonstration into an anti-independence mobilisation. Into the great mobilisation which they have never managed to make catch on on 12th October (Spanish National Day).

The fact that many of the attendees brought flags, banners and symbols with total normality that they identify with is proof of the maturity and coexistence of a pluralistic people at a crucial moment in their history. To intend to restrict the freedom of the demonstrators or to reproach them for the way they take to the street is typical of intolerant societies and it is normal that this attitude is very widely rejected. Or perhaps pain and rage cannot be expressed while carrying a flag? I saw a crowd in Paris with French flags after the attack at Charlie Hebdo in Paris in January 2015 and I did not read any criticism of that. That will be because here and there control has never been holy and a mark of a pluralistic society.

The whistles at the head of state, king Felipe VI, at the Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, and at the rest of Spanish authorities from some of those gathered today might be disagreeable and uncomfortable for those on the receiving end, but don't stop being an expression of the anger that doesn't start nor end with their presence at the protest, whose origin is known all too well by those in the first rows. To claim to visualise anything else happening with so many people in the streets would have been a fantasy.

But the demonstration has reflected something else: the symbiosis of the public with the Mossos d'Esquadra and also with the Urban Guard. The images of riot vehicles of the Catalan police covered with red and yellow roses are the continuation of a love story that starts with the dismantling of the terrorist cell in record time. We'll have to hold onto this moment after the emotions experienced so intensely these last few days. And after a day during which it's been possible for hours to see a representative image of how Catalan society thinks in the street.