Madrid mass protest over Catalonia talks

CALLS FOR PM SANCHEZ TO QUIT

THOUSANDS of Spaniards joined a rally in Madrid to demand that socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez step down.

Many in the crowd gathered in the capital’s Plaza de Colon were waving Spanish flags. They chanted slogans in favour of the nation’s security forces and for Mr Sanchez to resign.

The conservative opposition Popular Party and the centre-right Citizens Party organised the rally.

They claim that Mr Sanchez must resign for holding talks with separatists in Catalonia.

“The time of Mr Sanchez’s government is over,” said Popular Party president Pablo Casado, who asked voters to punish Mr Sanchez’s Spanish Socialist Work- ers’ Party in European, local and regional elections in May.

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

Mr Sanchez inherited the Catalan crisis from former prime minister Mariano Rajoy, the thenleader of the Popular Party. Mr Rajoy proved incapable of stopping support for secession from swelling in Catalonia to roughly half of the region’s voters.

Mr Sanchez came to power in June promising to thaw tensions between central authorities in Madrid and the Catalan leaders in Barcelona.