Reading a news article in ARA about Barcelona, I saw the propaganda of the newsletter to which you can subscribe, which displays a panot as its logo. The panot suddenly made me think of him.
What has become of Manuel Valls? What has become of the man who, to play the Catalan, posed with his foot on one of these tiles? Where is the man who managed to get Ada Colau elected mayor, as the lesser of two evils, to avoid the separatist Maragall? I remember him dressed in white in his wedding photos, dancing on a dance floor.
Where does he live? Does he still live in Barcelona? Is he still married? How come no gossip magazine has shown him on vacation, or in his "favorite corner" of Son Mugró, the hypothetical house he owns in Menorca? Has he gone back to his welcoming France, from where, he now thinks, he shouldn't have had to leave? And his acolytes? Where are those who asked business owners for money to finance his campaign? And his sister, Giovanna Valls? With an interesting story, she had a fleeting appearance in the media and then disappeared, who knows if willingly or by force.
I miss Manuel Valls, who thought he would be mayor and didn't realize that his "people" were actually guilty of being too un-French-speaking. I want to see Manuel Valls everywhere, like back then. I want him to go back to tweeting from the La Mina neighborhood, thinking he belongs to Barcelona, letting himself be photographed with nameless Gypsy patriarchs (no need to). I want to know if he's happy, married, or not anymore. I want to know if he cooks at home, if he's taken his worn-out wedding espadrille to the cobbler. I want to know if he reads, if he reviews TV series, if he cooks when he's hosting. I need to know everything about Manuel Valls, one of the most forgotten figures of the Catalan independence movement.
