The Spanish ambassador in Paris directly pressured the leadership of the prestigious university Sciences Po to not welcome a conference called "Self-determination and democracy. The Catalonia affair" which the Catalan Foreign Affairs minister, Raül Romeva, gave this Monday evening, six days before the 1st October independence referendum.
In the end, the conference could take place, but without television cameras. This was learnt just minutes before the event was due to start, when the university's communications team warned journalists they couldn't record images, take photographs nor record audio of the speeches. The minister had been invited by the university themselves.
The reason given by the university was "you have to apply for a special permit, it's Sciences Po policy". Nonetheless, on several occasions the media has been able to record similar conferences at the same centre, like the one given by the president of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, in October 2016.