Three months after elections were held, Catalonia’s independence movement now has control of the region’s government. But that control has come at a cost to the secessionists’ image. For years, the separatist movement has successfully sold itself as cool, kind and progressive. Backers of continued union with Spain were scorned as reactionaries, or even the inheritors of Franco’s legacy. Now, senior members of the independence movement worry that it will be identified with the CUP, whose raised fists and chaotic assemblies frighten conservative, middle-class Catalans. Mr Puigdemont’s CDC has traditionally represented a reassuring sense of order. The small but newly powerful CUP represents radical change on all fronts.
Read Full Article »
