Ripoll City Council distances itself from Cotarelo's call for war against Islam, whom it has hired for the Diada

Barcelona"Either we convert to Islam and live as second-class citizens, paying taxes, or we wage war and, of course, as far as they are concerned, they are defeated". The Saint George's Day speech given by Ramón Cotarelo in Ripoll was marked by controversy due to the warmongering tone used by the political scientist hired by the city council led by Sílvia Orriols. Both Junts and ERC have criticized Cotarelo for holding an Aliança Catalana (AC) "rally" at the Ripoll monastery. His bellicose language has caused even the council itself to want to distance itself in a statement: "We regret that the content of the speech did not stick strictly to the celebration of the Diada". It was not until the day after the Diada that Orriols decided to say publicly on X that "it was not the appropriate context or place" for the speech given, that "it did not stick to the assignment", although she endorses "a good part of his intervention". In fact, Cotarelo accompanied Aliança to the September 11th demonstration in Barcelona.

According to the municipal government, "full freedom" had been given to Cotarelo to prepare his intervention and they did not know its content. "The reflections expressed during his speech are, therefore, the glossator's own opinions and not a speech previously agreed upon with the institution". In the same vein, Orriols added that his words "were more appropriate for a conference", but that it is "false that he said that military service had to be brought back to wage holy war" against Islam. In her opinion, the intervention has been "distorted" to "wear down" her government when in reality "he said that we have three generations of Catalans who have not known war, two of them who have not done military service and that in the face of current threats we will not know how to react".

The controversy over the reintroduction of military service is what the opposition had denounced: "It has even promoted bringing back military service to wage a war against people of other religious denominations. Totalitarianism in its purest form, reinforcing the xenophobic discourse of AC", the ERC group in Ripoll has denounced, which has felt "shame and indignation". For its part, Junts has recalled that "the city council must represent Ripoll, not partisan interests".

Ramón Cotarelo was the last-minute choice to give the speech for the Diada, which marks the starting point of the commemorative acts organized in Ripoll. He was chosen after the philosopher Bernat Dedéu, who had initially committed to it, ended up resigning. Last year, the speech was given by the actor Toni Albà, who, unlike Cotarelo, focused on the need for immigrants to adapt: "When people have migrated, they have adapted to the place they arrive at, because the goal is to stop being immigrants".