Spain is interested in Sílvia Orriols

Barcelona"Silvia Orriols: the xenophobe who hates Spain and is sweeping the pollsWith this suggestive headline, La Sexta announced the report it aired last week about the leader of Aliança Catalana. It is not the first interview she has given to a Spanish media outlet. Other media outlets, some with a pro-Spanish stance, such as OK Daily and Global ChronicleShe has also been interviewed in recent months, always responding in Catalan. But the interest is not new.

On February 26, 2024, before the May 12 elections had been called for the Catalan Parliament, The World The newspaper published a full-page feature on Orriols, marking her first interview with a Spanish media outlet. This media blitz has led some to believe that the Spanish media establishment is promoting Aliança because its emergence and rise make it impossible to regain a pro-independence majority in the Catalan Parliament and the movement's longed-for unity.

Aliança's press officer, Eduard Berraondo, justified Orriols's granting of interviews to pro-Spanish media last week, citing the rejection or discomfort of her own party members. Berraondo attributed this to a supposed boycott by Catalan media, although ARA, for example, has repeatedly and unsuccessfully requested an interview with the leader of the far-right party, conveniently omitting the fact that she had already been interviewed on Catalunya Ràdio and TVE Catalunya.

"Many followers have asked—and some have even questioned—the appearance of Aliança Catalana in Spanish media outlets, often considered anti-independence. Some have tried to link it to ulterior motives or hidden strategies. Relax: it's much simpler than that." [This is a statement from the party's communications team.]

In any case, Orriols is attracting interest from Spain. He confirmed this a few months ago in an interview. The Vanguard Luis Argüello, Archbishop of Valladolid and current president of the Spanish Episcopal Conference, confessed, "I'm surprised to see how more and more people in Valladolid are following Silvia Orriols' subtitled speeches. I don't think we should call her far-right. These labels are outdated." He has positioned himself against the government of Pedro Sánchez. and has aligned itself with the positions of the PP and Vox, demanding, for example, elections.

In fact, key influencers of the Spanish far right, such as Wall Street Wolverine and SR. Liberal, who are close to Vox, have promoted Orriols. The first young influencer justified it by citing the "culture war," given that Vox cannot grow in Catalonia within the Catalan nationalist spectrum. "Alianza will achieve things that the PP and Vox will never achieve in Catalonia," he summarized in this video.

Admiration for the fight against the left—and especially against immigration and Islam—has been a constant in these sectors, only partially interrupted on specific issues related to independence or the Catalan language. Sources within Vox also comment that the growth of the Orriols district doesn't bother them because it allows them to position their extensive ideological framework as the main focus, which benefits them.

Strategy to capture non-separatist votes

However, Orriols's appearance in these media outlets is due to his objective of securing the non-separatist or Spanish-speaking vote in order to incorporate it into a political project of Catalan obedience and opposition to mass immigration. In the penultimate plenary session of Parliament, Orriols spoke of a single people, obviously including only Spanish immigrants. "When we were youngsters, we used to fight in the street shouting 'charnegos' and Poles“Today, those we used to fear are voting for us,” he asserted, based on the premise that everyone seeks to “guarantee a secure, prosperous, and Western Catalan future” for their children. He declared that they have now “turned the corner” to attack the parties that have used origin as an electoral weapon of division and that have exploited the confrontation between Catalans and Spanish immigrants to secure seats in that chamber; they have lived and thrived on keeping the conflict alive, ensuring the non-integration of that wave of migration. “With our arrival, with people of diverse origins, their little racket has come to an end, and so has the indissoluble unity of Spain,” he concluded.

Political scientist Andreu Paneque believes Orriols is also interested in appearing in these media outlets: "If it's not for the nationalist focus, he reaches a profile of people who may be very much in agreement with his ideology; in the end, only their nationalism differentiates them." Communication consultant Xavier Tomàs points out that Orriols's discourse is attractive "especially to media outlets with a relatively local audience or those that don't reject the far right."

"For the same reason that figures like Trump generate so much media interest: they generate spectacle and, consequently, an audience. It's an exotic phenomenon—seen from outside Catalonia—and it has an unavoidable dose of spectacle and interest," he adds. Beyond this "clickbait "of polarization," Paneque also points out that there may be a desire to "exaggerate what Alianza represents within the independence movement, with the aim of linking the xenophobic far right to the movement."

From Madrid, political scientist Pablo Simón does not see a "concerted plan" to foster division target The Alliance is pro-independence. "The promotion of the Catalan far right worries the Catalan media, but it affects the Spanish media less, and the latter look for newsworthy events," he points out. He also emphasizes that Orriols may feel more comfortable in these media outlets because "they don't have the same context as the Catalan ones" and the far right is "attractive to both right-wing and left-wing media for mobilizing their voters."