Catalan separatists clashed with police on Friday as Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez brought a cabinet meeting to regional capital Barcelona in both a show of central power and attempt at negotiation. Protesters threw stones, bottles and at police and police vans of the regional police Mossos D’Esquadra, in an attempt to break the security line. Police responded wielding their batons, dragging dozens away and arresting seven. Supporters of secession, in the wealthy north-eastern region of 7.5 million people, sat on highways from before dawn, setting up barricades of tires and refuse. Socialist leader Sanchez’s decision to convene his cabinet in Barcelona for the first time since the crisis began underlined Madrid’s opposition to full independence.

Source: The North Africa Journal December 21, 2018 15:03 UTC