Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Barcelona to protest the regional government’s decision not to uphold a court ruling that public schools provide a minimum of 25% of their classes in Castilian (Spanish).
The attempt to create a monolingual education system in Catalan—apart from alienating with respect to Catalan history, given that this region has always been duo-lingual—is discriminatory to those Catalans who want their children to learn the proper use of Castilian.
(We might also wonder at the democratic mandate for such a transformative reform of the educational system, given the extremely low voter turnout that led to the present government’s formation.)
The protests, which included the participation of about fifteen political and civil society groups brought together by the ‘School is for Everyone’ platform, unfolded under the slogans ‘Spanish, Vehicular Language.’
VOX party president Santiago Abascal was also in attendance, contrasting with the new leader of the center-right People’s Party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, whose conduct has at times hinted at something of a tepid approach to questions of patriotism and national unity.
