Rail protest turns into rally for independence 03/12/2007 00:00

3 December 2007

BARCELONA - A street demonstration in Barcelona Saturday to protest recent problems with the railroad service turned into a show of support for Catalan independence.

On the day when short-distance trains went back to their normal schedules after months of breakdowns and delays due to construction work on the high-speed AVE link to Madrid, several hundred thousand people marched through the streets of Catalonia's capital under the slogan: "We are a nation and we say 'Enough!' We have the right to make the decisions over our own infrastructure."

The protest drew between 125,000 people, according to this newspaper, and 700,000 according to organisers. All the nationalist parties were represented, including the conservatives of CiU, the republicans of ERC and the green coalition ICV-EUiA.

Aside from banners bearing phrases such as "Catalonia is not Spain," and "Spain does not love us, let's get a divorce," there were also many cries against the Public Works Minister Magdalena Álvarez, who narrowly missed being voted out of her job at a special congressional session last week.

[Copyright EL PAÍS, SL./ LLUÍS PELLICER 2007]

Subject: Spanish news