The Catalan president in exile, Carles Puigdemont, has this Monday denounced the creation of a "bubble of intoxication" by certain media outlets and parties with the aim of causing a "civil confrontation" in Catalonia. Puigdemont was speaking in a press conference alongside president Quim Torra in Waterloo, Belgium, and referring to the controversy surrounding an alleged attack on a woman removing yellow loops, a symbol of support for the Catalan political prisoners.
Puigdemont recommended the "machinery of confrontation" that has created this bubble that it "abandon its hopes of dragging Catalan society" to a confrontation. The president criticised the use of false images and information following incidents like the one in Barcelona's Ciutadella park, saying that they're trying to construct a "narrative which won't prosper".
"The Catalan people won't fall into provocation", he repeated, saying that the "parties who flirt with violence" should "proceed with care" because "it will never be accepted" in Catalonia. "We like to use public space as a space for debate and to express ourselves through democratic tools," he said.