Charges and clashes with the police in the anti-fascist demonstration against Núcleo Nacional

Barcelona"We have won and we have managed to prevent Núcleo Nacional from holding their event." In this way, one of the members of the Anti-Fascist Coordinator of Barcelona celebrated that the far-right organization had been unable to hold the rally at the Plaça Mossèn Jacint Verdaguer, which the ultra-rightists had renamed with the Spanish version of the poet's name in their calls to action. The eighty fascists who supported the call had to settle for holding their event at the corner of Carrer Mallorca and Roger de Flor, one hundred meters beyond the square. They were prevented from doing so by the three thousand anti-fascists, most of whom were from the pro-independence left, who managed to occupy the square after bypassing various police checkpoints.

The anti-fascists, however, were unable to break the police cordon of the riot police, who were dedicated to enduring the intermittent throwing of stones, bottles, and paint cans that were being thrown at them. About twenty vans of the Mobile Brigade of the Mossos d'Esquadra separated the two demonstrations. After a while of shouting and insults between the two groups, those summoned by the ultra formation decided to leave. They did so escorted by the Mossos d'Esquadra to a parking lot where a good number of them had their cars because most of them came from the Vallès Occidental, although some also left on foot.

It was just after their departure when the police charges began. The Mossos charged when the anti-fascist procession was already marching towards Passeig de Sant Joan after receiving another throwing of objects. A woman was injured by the police shoving while they were charging against the protesters.

The anti-fascists responded with bottles, stones, and firecrackers, but the riot police dedicated themselves to containing the onslaughts without charging again during a moment of maximum tension with shouts from the anti-fascists of "I would be ashamed to be a police officer!".

After a while, the anti-fascists continued moving down the Passeig de Sant Joan, where the second clash with the police took place. The protesters chased and beat a tourist who had a tattoo they interpreted as fascist, and the Mossos appeared on the scene again. The anti-fascists responded by throwing more objects, mostly chairs from bar terraces, until the police forced them back toward the main body of the demonstration.

A march that ended at the Arc de Triomf, where the organizers declared the demonstration over, congratulating themselves for having succeeded in preventing Núcleo Nacional from holding their event as planned. "Barcelona will be the grave of fascism," they chanted just before dispersing. These protesters were unable to join the traditional Diada demonstration of the pro-independence left, which had issued two calls to action against the Núcleo Nacional event and gathered nearly 7,000 people, according to the organizers, and 1,100, according to the Guàrdia Urbana.

First act of the Spanish far-right for the National Day

Under the slogan "Catalanidad es hispanidad", Núcleo Nacional had called its first event on the occasion of the Diada since its founding in 2024. This is the first time that a Spanish far-right organization has held an event on September 11th in Catalonia.

The neo-Nazi organization already has some militants in Catalonia and in January announced that they were inaugurating their headquarters in Catalonia. It did so shrouded in mystery because it did not communicate where the event would be until an hour and a half before the inauguration. The goal was to prevent the pro-independence left and the anarchist movement from organizing to boycott the event.

Finally, they announced that the event would be in Sentmenat, but it was not their new headquarters, rather they rented a venue in an industrial estate for children's events to present themselves publicly on Catalan soil. Hundreds of people from anarchist organizations and the pro-independence left traveled to the town in the Vallès Occidental to combat the racist ideology of this fascist group that wants to expel all immigrants and which the Ministry of the Interior has targeted. The counter-demonstration ended with police charges against the anti-fascists, who tried to break the police barrier, as they have timidly attempted today.