When he is away from the limelight, Carles Puigdemont i Casamajó, president of Catalonia since January 12, 2016, has not changed. Or rather, has not changed much. Because it is obvious that the exile forced on him by Spain to avoid imprisonment has marked him for the rest of his life. However, he remains spontaneous, intuitive, intimate, feline, and above all, a leader, a characteristic recognized by everyone except those who do not know him. He is convincing and he is convinced. Secure and down to earth. He does stray into the terrain of the impossible, for all that the Spanish cabinet tries to depict him as living in the "Matrix". He brings an impressive dignity to the office, from which he was improperly dismissed on the morning of October 28th last year by Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy, after the Senate approved the application of article 155 of the Constitution, and Rajoy's government then dissolved Catalan autonomy by the back door, with the enthusiastic support of the Citizens party (Cs) and the Socialists (PSOE).
The intrepid and daring man who keeps the Spanish government constantly occupied as he wheels a suitcase through airports, as Antoni Puigvert defined him so vividly, seems today to personify, perhaps, an impossible mission. But hasn't it, the Catalan cause, always been like that? Wasn't the Catalan presidency maintained in exile by Josep Tarradellas an impossible mission for more than 23 years, during the Franco dictatorship?
In the mid-1970s, when I visited the old president at Saint-Martin-le-Beau, in the arrondissement of Tours in central France, the old republican lion was a man without a future. The first post-Franco Spanish PM Adolfo Suárez had not yet made any move, the leftists had not won the elections of June 15th 1977 in Catalonia, and Tarradellas was just a relic, a dusty archive in some administrative office. The demand for his return was not echoed by the majority, even in Catalonia. But there he was, in a lost farmhouse in the department of Indre-et-Loire, with his wife Maria Antònia Macià and his daughter Montserrat, planning a future that only he could see. Today it can be concluded that if Tarradellas had not resisted in exile for almost two and a half decades, the Diputació General de Catalunya, the other Catalan government structure, promoted by Juan Antonio Samaranch, might have been able to move forward, and who knows how the history of the following years would have been written.
But at the moment, neither Puigdemont is Tarradellas, nor Rajoy is Adolfo Suárez. In addition, Tarradellas at a key moment in time offered the solution, whereas Puigdemont is precisely the problem for a Spanish state whose rulers have decided to dodge the law as much as necessary to preserve their unity. Even if the objective forces them to oppose the outdated organism that is Spain's Council of State, which dared to present Spanish deputy PM Soraya Sáenz de Santamaria with a severe embarrassment with its affirmative view when asked whether the Catalan Parliament could or could not undertake the investiture of Carles Puigdemont. It is so evident that the investiture could indeed be carried out, that the legion of state lawyers advising the deputy PM were humbled on their home turf. To put it simply, the Council of State, which says yes to everything the Spanish government asks of it, exclaimed a resounding 'no', unable to avoid a reaction of great discomfort to the executive's initiative.
Dozens of lies are written about Puigdemont every day. There are no limits in the efforts to discredit that are him made from Madrid and, to a lesser extent, from Barcelona. It is a curious paradox, that one of the politicians most sought after by international media and best positioned to choose the international newspaper or television channel to whom he wishes to speak, is vilified daily by the establishment called "Madrid". The fake news stories rival each other almost every day. Two of the latest ones: an ultra-right newspaper in Madrid, states that he has been caught "drinking expensive champagne and eating a lobster dinner at a luxurious restaurant in Brussels". Television gives the story a lot of coverage and, thus, nothing more needs to be added: the viewer will be left with a clear image, that Puigdemont is enjoying the good life.
And the reality? The restaurant is called Carnivore, it is to the north of the city, near the fish market, the Santa Caterina metro station and the square of the same name. It has a good rating in leading restaurant review sites Trip Advisor and The Fork. Outside, there is a sign showing prices: two courses and a dessert, 25 euros. If you opt for the grilled half lobster, 28 euros all up. The owner, who speaks perfect Spanish, offers you a glass of Catalan sparkling cava that he doesn't have on the winelist, which only shows French champagne. This is the lobster and the "expensive champagne", as part of a 28 euro meal, for those who want it. And this was the height of luxury that Spanish television gave such broad coverage to.
A second piece of fake news: coinciding with Puigdemont's short trip, just over 24 hours long, to Copenhagen this week, a story is circulated that his younger brother, who resides in Denmark, a few hours away from the capital, did not even make the effort to come and see him. A lie. Puigdemont does not have a brother living in Denmark. But the point is to present him as a fugitive whose own family does not want to have anything to do with. It is impossible to constantly deny everything, of course. But in this war of information it is obvious that the state has a story that seeks his destruction. Political but also personal.
Puigdemont leaves the restaurant in his modest car with his inseparable confidant Josep Maria Matamala and another man accompanying them. Outside, a young man, thin, medium height, with a few days' stubble, discreetly takes pictures with a mobile phone. Apparently, not of Puigdemont, but of his fellow diner. When the latter takes out his phone to try to photograph the photographer, the stubbled young man quickly pulls up the hood of his anorak, hides his face, turns away and leaves in an hurry. Another typical scene.