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Prick me and take blood from me

2 min
The president of the PP, Alberto Nuñez Feijóo, accompanied by Alejandro Fernández, leader of the party in Catalonia (left), and by the mayor of Badalona, Xavier García Albiol, on October 18.
The president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, accompanied by Alejandro Fernández, leader of the party in Catalonia (left), and by the mayor of Badalona, Xavier García Albiol, on October 18. Andreu Dalmau / Efe
Empar Moliner
26/10/2026 - 18:08 h
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Unverified translation
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We read in ARA that the mayor of Badalona and head of the PP list in Catalonia for November 29th, Xavier García Albiol, has told RTVE that there is a “very serious problem” due to the “setback” of Catalan and is asking for “action to be taken to reverse the trend”. It is lucky he is a tough man, because the fury of the Spanish nationalist entities that heard him will reach higher than the arboreal element with which he does a “Decorando Badalona”, every year. It is believed that the scheme the PP is working with is based on the report by the ERC member Josep Bargalló, who was Minister of Education.

García Albiol knows very well, like Garriga from Vox, that being unpleasant and belligerent with the Catalan language will lead to crashing against the fence. His (so-called) leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, knows, of course, that he cannot go against Galician. And that is why the man is trying to articulate a discourse that does not grate against Catalan, as if going against Catalan were normal and normative and going against Galician, a sacrilege. Garriga, explaining that he wants his children to “continue dancing sardanas and not celebrating the festival of the lamb” (yes, kids, you have to choose between La Santa Espina and a halal lamb) does the same. It is one thing for his (so-called) leader Santiago Abascal to want to ban “the autonomies” and the song “bajando de la fuente del gato”, and another thing is for him to be able to scrape up some votes if they let him cross the tightrope.

Xavier García Albiol is a very skillful politician. He knows how to read the score and has understood that that old PP of Josep Piqué or Manolo Milian Mestre is the only one that could pull them out of the bottom of the sea. Some time ago, Citizens entered politics. And when they became extinct, they left us an attitude: the tense banality, which stayed here forever. Today, Aliança Catalana, another foam-emerging party, leaves us another attitude: the transversal concern, fake or real, of fascists and wokes, for the language. I love it.

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