La Bressola, Argelers and Machado: Isla visits Northern Catalonia (without calling it Northern Catalonia)

Perpignan / Argeleros de la MarendaHaryles, Fleur, Jules and Mathis welcome the president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, at the door of their school: La Bressola on Tour de Madeloc street in Perpignan. Isla shakes their hands before following them into the centre. It is the first time she has visited him. She does so just after announcing that the Government will increase to 800,000 euros the financial aid it provides to the network of schools that support Catalan in Northern Catalonia, in the face of the economic (and judicial) suffocation they are suffering from the Perpignan City Council. governed by the far-right Reagrupament Nacional. It was an increase that the Government had linked to the failed Catalan budgets of 2025, and that Illa has taken advantage of to recover on his first official trip to Northern Catalonia this Friday.

Inside one of the two La Bressola centres in Perpignan, Illa walks through the corridors guided by the four students. There are posters celebrating the Canigó Flame festival, spoken in Catalan and drawings of Catalan traditions. The first stop is the Minairons class: without knowing it, the president bursts into an assembly of primary school students. "Do you want something?" Isla asks, seeing a girl with her hand raised. They explain to her that this is how the assembly works: the children gather and take papers out of a mailbox in which there are complaints and congratulations. Isla listens to some of the students' interventions: one of them warns that the toilets have become blocked. "This needs to be resolved quickly," agrees the president.

With a Catalan with a marked French accent – 90% of the students come from French-speaking families – the students in a second classroom tell him that they have more congratulations than complaints and that many of them have been resolved on their own, after the two weeks of vacation from which they have just returned. "The passage of time solves many things," says Illa. Before leaving, he comments that he really likes the phrase, in Catalan, that the students have written on a poster: "Do not do to others what you would not like them to do to you.". The island is up and running and classes are continuing, but the shadow of closure is still hanging over La Bressola, with more than 1,000 students and 100 employees. The president of the network, Guillem Nivet, has thanked the Generalitat for its contribution, but has called for greater commitment from French institutions to put an end to the underfunding that threatens the continuity of the project, with nine centres in Northern Catalonia.

Contacts and meetings

Isla's visit to Perpignan began early at the Casa de la Generalitat de Catalunya. Ten minutes before the president made his first speech, some workers were placing the flag on the lectern in the press room. "How was this going?" asked one. "The pin, up," answered another. A person from the president's team came over to lend a hand and get it ready for the president's first institutional statement of the day (without questions). Given the chaos on the Cercanías, it was imperative that he began by apologising to the citizens. due to the disaster (and long queues of travellers on foot) caused by a breakdown in Bellvitge.

Avoiding using the expression Northern Catalonia, Illa explained the main lines of his visit, which had three objectives: first, to explore future economic opportunities for Catalonia in the region, with an economy very focused on agriculture and tourism and ambitious projects in renewable energy. offshore; second, to learn about La Bressola's work first-hand, and third, to make a series of visits focused on democratic memory, starting with the Argelès concentration camp. He also met with the president of the Pyrénées-Orientales department, Hermeline Malherbe, and businessmen from the region.

Democratic memory

In the afternoon, accompanied by the Minister of Justice, Ramon Espadaler, Isla took part in a floral offering to the monolith that commemorates the passage of more than 100,000 refugees through the concentration camp until 1939. From the Memorial of the Argelès Camp, Isla gave an advance of part of the programme of events that the Government will launch to commemorate. As he explained, the Generalitat will organise an act of reparation for President Lluís Companys, with the official recognition of the nullity of the court martial that sentenced him to death. Acts of reparation for victims will also be organised throughout the area and the Empremtes Forest will be inaugurated in Sant Adrià de Besòs, which will pay tribute to those executed at the Camp de la Bota. In addition, the Government will organise a tribute to the anti-Franco opposition within the framework of the commemorative act of the Assemblea de Catalunya.

Isla said goodbye to Argelès quoting Antonio Machado, whose grave he will visit in Collioure before returning to Barcelona.Everything that is ignored is despised",he said, to assert democratic memory policies. "Forgetting is a danger to maintaining a cohesive society with a sense of the common good. As the mayor [of Argelès] said, this is more relevant than ever. Perhaps today we are where we are because we have forgotten where we come from," he said. Isla spoke first in French, after a sign with the Catalan place name, Argelers de la Marenda. However, he used the term in French.