Spanish king accuses separatists of ‘disloyalty’

700,000 demonstrators march in Barcelona for Catalonia independence

Madrid — King Felipe VI told the Catalan separatists trying to break up his country that their “unacceptable disloyalty” has no place in any democratic state, as he vowed to keep Spain together.

In a televised address to the nation, Felipe said the regional government has sown division among its own people with its repeated and deliberate violations of Spanish law, and put the economic well-being and social harmony of the whole country at risk.

“They have shown an unacceptable disloyalty toward the power of the state,” Felipe said. “Today Catalan society is fractured, set against itself.”

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is fighting to maintain control after 2.3 million Catalans defied both the central government and the Constitutional Court to cast ballots in a makeshift referendum on independence. Regional police ignored orders to shut down the vote on Sunday. For Felipe, the crisis may be a defining moment of his three-year reign, like the attempted coup which sought to topple his father’s nascent democracy in 1981.

“Certain officials in Catalonia have repeatedly, consciously and purposefully breached the constitution,” Felipe said.

Rajoy, who heads a minority government, is struggling to find the political support he wants for an unprecedented move against the separatists, and the king’s intervention may help sway the doubters. He made no reference to Sunday’s violence or to voters who were injured during the crackdown.

Catalan President Carles Puigdemont has promised a formal announcement to regional lawmakers of the referendum results, triggering a 48-hour countdown to a unilateral declaration of independence. But there’s been no indication yet of when he might do it.

Some 700,000 demonstrators flooded the streets of Barcelona on Tuesday to express their outrage at the crackdown by Spanish police, according to local officials. Protesters surrounded police vehicles and blocked access to central-government buildings, but there was none of the violence that shocked observers around the world on Sunday.

Jaume Balmes High School in Barcelona, a focus of the police raids, was festooned with flowers.