PM target of Catalan tensions

TENS of thousands of people have joined a right-wing rally in Spain’s capital to demand Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez step down for his handling of the Catalonia region’s secession crisis.

Many in the crowd (pictured) assembled in Madrid’s Plaza de Colon waved the national flag and chanted slogans in support of Spain’s security forces, along with calls for the socialist PM’S resignation.

The conservative opposition Popular Party and the Citizens party (centre-right) organised the rally, which the far-right Vox party and other far-right parties backed.

“The time of Sanchez’s Government is over,” Popular Party president Pablo Casado said. He asked voters to punish Mr Sanchez’s socialists in May’s elections.

The political tensions come as a highly sensitive trial at Spain’s Supreme Court began overnight for 12 Catalan separatists who face charges for their roles in a failed secession attempt in 2017.

Mr Sanchez inherited the Catalan conflict from former PM Mariano Rajoy, the then leader of the Popular Party.

Mr Rajoy proved incapable of stopping support for secession in Catalonia.