Spanish foreign affairs minister Josep Borrell has today shared a manifesto signed by thirteen pro-Spain French intellectuals in response to a text signed by 41 French senators shared on the same website, Mediapart, last week.
The document uses many of the normal arguments of Global Spain, the body set up during Borrell's tenure as minister to improve Spain's image international and counter the arguments of independence supporters abroad. The text is entitled Pour le respect des droits et des libertés de tous les citoyens d'Espagne ("In favour of respect for the rights and freedoms of all Spain's citizens"), a clear allusion to the first manifesto: Pour le respect des libertés et des droits fondamentaux en Catalogne ("In favour of respect for freedoms and fundamental rights in Catalonia").
The authors "ask for the signatories [of the original text] to recognise the reality of Spanish democracy and the independence of the Spanish Supreme Court".
Voici la réponse aux sénateurs français signataires de la lettre «Pour le respect des libertés et des droits fondamentaux en #Catalogne». Une clarification contre la désinformation en la matière et sur les droits et les libertés de tous les citoyens en #Espagne. pic.twitter.com/y6CFL3u4GM
— Josep Borrell Fontelles (@JosepBorrellF) 29 de març de 2019
La démocratie espagnole, dont découle l’indépendance du Tribunal Suprême, est une réalité. Le mot «dialogue» ne doit pas être dévoyé et la réalité ne doit être simplifiée ni sous-estimée.
— Josep Borrell Fontelles (@JosepBorrellF) 29 de març de 2019
"The trial of leaders of the Catalan government (tried for having tried to substitute, through the votes of parliamentarians representing less than half of the electorate, a new Catalan nationalist legal order in the place of the constitutional order in effect) is broadcast online, followed by numerous European and Spanish legal scholars as well as by human rights associations," they write.
The document criticises the senators for "calling the application of Spanish law 'repression'" and for describing the defendants as victims. It also accuses them of simplifying a "very complicated problem" in which the defendants "chose the path of revolution (to overthrow a regime) to impose the system which seems necessary to them, at the risk of spreading hatred between citizens".
The text finishes by "ask[ing] that the word 'dialogue' not be corrupted. (...) The separatists have to abandon [the path] of negotiation without concessions over Catalonia's self-determination".
The signatories include professors, historians, writers and editors. They are: Barbara Loyer, Benoît Pellistrandi, Joseph Pérez, Jean-Pierre Étienvre, Marie-Blanche Requejo Carrió, Cyril Trépier, Béatrice Giblin, Francisco Javier Irazoki, Michèle Basterra, Pierre Basterra, Emmanuel Bertrand, Pierre Blanc and Maurice Goldring.