Puigdemont says he wants to "stop being Spanish" and compares it to "someone who feels like a woman trapped in a man's body"

BarcelonaFormer president Carles Puigdemont claims his desire to "stop being Spanish" and compares it to the situation experienced by a trans person: "Like someone who feels like a woman trapped in a man's body, and everyone recognizes that identity-based violence must be resolved," he says in an interview published this morning in El Punt Avui. Statements that have caused a stir on social media and have been censored by the ERC candidate for 29-N, Gabriel Rufián: "It would be good if these people stopped embarrassing us," he wrote on X in reference to Junts.

In the interview, Puigdemont refers to the issue of Spanish nationality after being asked whether, after nine years in exile in Belgium, he is considering applying for dual nationality. "What I want is to stop being Spanish," he says. "I have never felt represented or identified by the Spanish nationality. I do not say this as an act of rejection or contempt, it is something alien to me, it does not represent me," he remarks.

Following this, he makes the controversial comparison to the situation of a trans woman, and further adds: "It violates me to have Spanish nationality. It is hostile, an aggression that I feel, and I should be able to have the right to unsubscribe from Spain. If I can unsubscribe from Telefónica, Google, La Caixa, or the Catholic Church, even from sexual condition, why is it so hard to change a piece of paper? Why should this lead me to prison? It is a reflection I have been making for many years," he reflects.

Throughout the interview, on the eve of his definitive amnesty, Puigdemont does not clarify when he will return, and leaves his political future open. "I cannot imagine being detached from the independence process; what I don't know is in what role: perhaps I will demonstrate at the Fossar again, perhaps I will write books, perhaps I will run in elections or perhaps I will be mayor of Amer. I don't know," he says.