The strike of the people, the strike of the police

The Catalan press agrees on highlighting the great popular mobilization but also the uneven following of the strike. In Madrid, on the other hand, the right wing is very clear about it and sells it with its usual monochrome tone: “Electoral strike shipwrecks” (El Mundo) or “Total failure of the electoral strike” (La Razón). It is this permanent inability for nuance, for the little white dot within the yin or the black within the yang. More in the field of humor than that of journalism, I cannot help but record this headline from Ok Diario, faithful to its tradition of mudslingers: “Sánchez does not go on strike: Ok Diario catches him leaving Ferraz after recording another podcast”.

Beyond the assessments of the following day, one of the headlines that most caught my attention is the front page one of El Periódico, just on the day of the walkout: “The police foresee a strike with little following but radicalized”. It is not usual for a newspaper with a tradition of being progressive to put the emphasis on possible disturbances before they occur when faced with a strike, and even less so by resorting to a non-neutral source like the police, which legitimized putting the baton before the wound. (In contrast, the website of Eldiario.es opened yesterday with “The harsh police charges unleash a wave of criticism and the unions plan to go to justice”). Continuing with the newspaper of the Prensa Ibérica group, on Sunday the most prominent piece on the front page was the interview with Abascal –while, when La Vanguardia spoke to him, it relegated him to a minor module–, so there are signs of a certain shift to the right in the editorial line, especially in the realm of Spanish politics. All this while the newspaper of the Grupo Godó has become a Sanchista supporter often more enthusiastic than El País. It will be interesting to see what inflections are marked starting from 29-N in these three mastheads.