Orriols invites the new PSC councilor in Ripoll to sign up for a Catalan course

Barcelona"Out of institutional respect, I remind you that the natural language is Catalan and, if you are not aware of it, I inform you that there are places available at the adult school. If you wish, I can give you an enrollment form." In this way, the mayor of Ripoll, Sílvia Orriols, reproached the new councilor of the PSC, Jorge Iglesias, who was debuting in the plenary session yesterday, for giving his speech in Spanish. In a subsequent intervention, Morillo responded that he will do "the possible to learn Catalan", but asked the leader of Aliança Catalana to "do the possible to carry out social actions". It all started when Iglesias, a retiree born in Montevideo and linked to the Ripollès region, intervened in the swearing-in ceremony and assured that he would carry out the activity "with the appropriate loyalty". The other socialist councilor, Paco Morillo, a resident of Ripoll, did not wish to intervene in his debut as a councilor.

Amidst the controversy, the Minister of Linguistic Policy of the Generalitat, Francesc Xavier Vila, has defended the scolding of the Islamophobic leader. "I think it is a mistake, it would have been a good moment to show that they too can make an effort to speak a language that until now they have not spoken perhaps out of shame or because they do not feel secure, but it was necessary for them to also show that they were joining the use of the Catalan language," he concluded in an interview with SER Catalunya this Wednesday.

But this was not Orriols' only reproach to the two new PSC representatives, who have obtained their councillor seats after the leadership forced the resignation of their predecessors, Enric Pérez and Anna-Belén Avilés, for allowing the budgets to be approved with their abstention. No member of the candidacy wanted to replace them in disagreement with the leadership's decision, and the leadership created a management committee. A few weeks later, the leadership announced that Paco Morillo and Jorge Iglesiaswould be the new socialist councillors.

Orriols took advantage of their arrival to criticize the choice of the two new socialist councillors: "I remind you that none of you have been democratically elected and, therefore, in this plenary hall you do not represent the voters of any list, but rather you represent yourselves and that's all," he denounced, even though his party is also getting councillors into town halls after running with other parties. Be that as it may, the mayor of Ripoll accused them of "trampling" the work of the two previous socialist councillors "with disloyalty and betrayal" and called them "scabs".