The ANC announces a great demonstration for the tenth anniversary of 1-O

BarcelonaThe independence movement wants to turn the page on years of pessimism and is looking for the spark to revive the movement. Both the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) and Òmnium Cultural agree that the moment could be the tenth anniversary of the referendum of October 1, 2017. With this date in mind, the president of the ANC, Josep Vila, has summoned independentist civil entities in the coming weeks to a summit "open to everyone" – except for political parties – to begin preparing a large demonstration for the autumn of next year. "It must signify the trigger for a new, strong, and determined push for independence," the independence leader proclaimed before a packed Plaça Catalunya.

The president of Òmnium Cultural, Xavier Antich, has also identified the autumn of 2027 as a key point to revive the independence movement, when he expects that the exiled independentists will have already returned to Catalonia, with Carles Puigdemont at the "forefront." These words come just after the Supreme Court has opened the door to lifting the arrest warrant against the former president of the Generalitat once the decision from the Constitutional Court arrives.

Antich has claimed that "all these years of post-Procés have made sense" for the independence movement, and he has recovered an optimistic discourse to ensure that the movement is "better prepared" than ten years ago to "address the conflict" against the Spanish state. "We will do it again. And this time, we will do it better," exclaimed the president of Òmnium.

In fact, although he has admitted that the pro-independence mobilization has been declining over the last few years, Antich celebrated the thousands of people who demonstrated for the Diada. According to the Barcelona Urban Guard, about 45,000 people gathered in the Catalan capital. And, added to the 11,000 in Girona and the 1,600 in Amposta according to the local police and the Mossos, the demonstrators of this Diada amount to almost 58,000. As usual, there is a discrepancy in figures with the organizers, who have raised the number to 128,000. In any case, the figure is higher than last year: according to police data, in 2025 the pro-independence mobilizations totaled 41,500 people.

Overcoming the "grief" of the Procés

Vila has also declared the "mourning" for the independence process "abandoned" and has advocated for returning to "organize" the movement from the grassroots and throughout the country. In this sense, he has asked to turn the page on "the stage of internal struggles, reproaches, and demobilization". "Let us turn the mistakes of the past into learning experiences", he insisted. "Let us decisively open a new stage", he added.

The president of the ANC has also called for a fight against the "decadence" that he considers Catalonia is suffering and the "growing unrest that is perceived" due to "unworthy" infrastructure, "precarious" working conditions, an educational system that is "overwhelmed and lacking resources," and "scandalous and impossible housing prices." The structural cause of all this is, according to Vila, the "lack of self-government" and the fact of "remaining subject to colonization and Spanish plunder." "Independence or decadence," insisted the president of the ANC, who has urged Catalans to "turn around the Catalonia presided over by an incapable government that is always at the service of the master in Madrid."

The "Spanishness" of Aliança Catalana

Several pro-independence leaders have attended the Diada demonstration in Barcelona, such as the Junts member Jordi Turull or the Republican Oriol Junqueras, who has returned to make an appearance at the September 11th mobilizations five years later. Nevertheless, the speeches at the event organized by the ANC at Plaça Catalunya were mainly directed against Aliança Catalana. Its leader, Sílvia Orriols, also attended the demonstration, together with the senior leadership of the party and accompanied by a couple of hundred supporters.

Given the rise of Aliança Catalana, the president of Òmnium reminded the audience amidst applause that "one must not mistake the enemy" and should not point at the newcomers arriving in Catalonia, but rather at Madrid and the far-right itself. "The Spanish state wants us divided as a movement and the far-right wants to fracture us as a society. Neither one nor the other will succeed," indicated Antich.

The harshest speech against Orriols, however, was delivered by the director of CIEMEN (Escarré International Centre for Ethnic and National Minorities), David Minoves. He accused the leaders of Aliança Catalana of being the "fifth columnists" of Spanish nationalism and that their goal is to "make it impossible" for the independence movement to gain majorities in Parliament again. However, despite the movement having fallen into "despair and rancor," Minoves remarked that the rise of the far-right is "avoidable" and that "it must be confronted," citing as an example the anti-fascist demonstration against the presence of Aliança Catalana at the Fossar de les Moreres on the eve of the Diada. "We are and will be one single people," said Minoves.

The main ANC event began with 'Virolai' and the 'Cant de la Senyera', which were performed by singers who had been expelled from the Sagrada Família when they went to sing them, and it ended this year in a different way: three hooded individuals climbed onto the stage and burned a Spanish flag. Although it seemed that the organization had given them permission, sources from the pro-independence entities assure that it was not planned. Be that as it may, the protesters applauded it and accompanied the burning with shouts of "Fucking Spain" and "Jump, jump, jump, whoever doesn't jump is Spanish".