MADRID (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of people waving the Spanish flag marched through the streets of Madrid on Saturday to denounce the amnesty bill accepted by the president of the socialist government Pedro Sanchez in exchange for the support of Catalan separatists in Parliament .
The leader of the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party) was reappointed Thursday for a new four-year term as head of the executive after promising an amnesty law for some 400 people convicted after the self-determination referendum and the attempted secession of Catalonia in 2017, separatist activists or police officers tried for clashes with activists.
The demonstrators, numbering 170,000 according to the organizers, marched to cries of “Sanchez traitor” or “Spain is not for sale” at the call of civil society groups. The leader of the Popular Party (conservative) Alberto Nunez Feijoo and that of Vox (far right) Santiago Abascal were in the procession.
Since the announcement of the amnesty agreement two weeks ago, protesters, including neo-Nazi groups, have demonstrated daily in front of the PSOE headquarters in Madrid.
(Raul Cadenas, Susana Vera, Jean-Stéphane Brosse for the French service)
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