The result of the CEO survey puts numbers to a reality that we have all felt on the street, that of the growing voting intention of many people towards Aliança Catalana. What happens is that these numbers are -or would be, rather- a political tsunami and would represent a new page in the history of Catalan society.Going from the two deputies they have now to 23-25 as the CEO says is a tsunami. And for Junts, going from 35 to 13-18 is also one.When a party's main message is as basic as “Save Catalonia” and it is formulated by a leader who is not at all empathetic, at the head of an unknown team, and, even so, their electoral expectations skyrocket, it means that they have connected with the real or suggested discontents of many people, in relation to insecurity in the streets, Islamic radicalism, “massive” immigration, the emigration of well-prepared young Catalans, the decline of the language or fiscal plunder. Many Catalans feel – and what is worse, notice – that the country is slipping through their fingers. And pay attention, because the diagnosis has found a new centrality in which voters from the integrating Catalanism of Junts and Convergència to the bullfighting and Vox Legion Spanish nationalists have come to coincide. 1 out of every 3 votes that Aliança Catalana would win would come from Junts, and 1 out of every 4 votes would come from Vox, united by the flag of Islamophobia. The current parliamentary majority of PSC, Esquerra, Comuns would barely hold on, with the PSC dropping from 42 to 36-38. The government of appeasement, the one of management, is not being sufficient, among other things because the management is clearly improvable.That Aliança Catalana has detected the causes of discontent does not mean it has the capacity to remedy them. In fact, far-right parties are specialists in identifying culprits, but they are not as effective when it comes to finding solutions; on the contrary, because there can be a very short step from harshness to hatred that breaks societies. And with hatred, we are heading towards a new social fracture. Look at the report by Sebastián Marín, about how about 400 people of Moroccan origin gathered last night in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat to follow France-Morocco in the World Cup, in a meeting organized by the Moroccan consulate in Barcelona. Let's take it as a phenomenon: we cannot confuse the effects of radical Islamism, or the crime associated with the poverty of some immigrants, with living alongside neighbors of the Islamic faith. And the far-right, as we know, mixes everything up.The CEO's survey implicates Junts and within Junts, President Puigdemont. He should have been able to live in Catalonia for months now, under the amnesty law, but the judiciary has blocked it. This harms the expectations of a party that heavily relies on the almost iconic figure of the president in exile. At the same time, it is evident that we have gone from a Puigdemont with political initiative, who moved around Europe and overcame arrests and was very present in the media to direct the message, to a Puigdemont who basically only speaks on social media, with an often resentful tone, marked by the almost nine years of exile, the poor results of the negotiation with the PSOE, which conveys the idea that he doesn't care about the PP or the PSOE, because for Catalonia's purposes they are the same. Puigdemont had the status of a political rock star. Today, Aliança Catalana is acting as a substitute for the interest in politics, for the emotional vote, that the Process represented. And Junts will not be able to address it effectively if it does not stop being a party angry with the world (for whatever reason it may have) and begins to generate confidence and pride among the people.

All polls agree that the PSC will win the next Catalan elections, but the one presented this Friday by the Centre d'Estudis d'Opinió (CEO) is particularly encouraging for the socialists, who would broadly surpass their opponents with a range of between 40 and 47 deputies, growing significantly from the 33 they obtained in 2021. The CEO's poll is also a counter-current poll because it places ERC (31-37) in second position, ahead of Junts (28-34), which would place Pere Aragonès in the fight with Carles Puigdemont to become the candidate for investiture from the pro-independence flank. The director of the CEO, Jordi Muñoz, has spoken of a "technical tie" between the two parties.

The electoral cycle is tinged with blue. The PP has advanced strongly everywhere, but especially in Andalusia, the Valencian Country, and also in Madrid, both in regional and municipal elections. Now it is confident of doing the same in the general elections of July 23, as all surveys predict, including the CIS one. They are, along with Catalonia, the key territories to pave the way to Moncloa. For this reason, it is in the Principality that the socialists are playing a good part of their credit. Pedro Sánchez knows that the differential he achieves with the PP in Catalonia could end up being decisive, especially if he loses momentum in other autonomies. The PSC will win the elections by a wide margin, according to the survey that the Opinòmetre Institute has conducted for ARA. With a range of between 14 and 16 deputies, the socialists will return to first place fifteen years later. And what will be the differential with the PP? The popular party, also on the rise, capturing the majority of Cs' vote, would be left with between 5 and 7 deputies in the Spanish Parliament.

The intentions of the Spanish government to ban social media for under-16s have been very well received in Catalonia. 87% of Catalans - almost 9 out of 10 - endorse this as the minimum age for social media users in all EU countries, according to a survey by the Centre d'Estudis d'Opinió (CEO) and the European Parliament. The poll, published this Monday to mark 40 years since Spain's accession to the community club, indicates that only 10% of respondents are against the measure, while only 3% do not know or do not answer. Setting a minimum age limit for these platforms convinces even the youngest in the sample, as 84% of those interviewed between 18 and 24 years old are in favor.

This past weekend I rewatched Gran Torino, one of the best films directed by Clint Eastwood (and that's saying a lot, considering he's one of the best directors of the last fifty years of Hollywood). It coincided with the publication of the YouGov poll for this newspaper, with the data that 66% of Catalans, an undeniable majority, are in favor of restricting immigrants' access to the country. This same majority is, at the same time, in favor of guaranteeing equal rights among all residents. However, 30% declare themselves in favor of applying the national priority defended by Vox and Aliança Catalana (and which the Popular Party has adopted). Released in 2008, Eastwood's film already speaks openly about immigration, and it's a hymn to the diversity and social cohesion of a country (the USA, but it could be Catalonia, it could be the Catalan Countries) historically formed by immigrants. However, being a hymn doesn't mean it's accommodating or well-intentioned: it shows how Black people have prejudices against Asians, Asians against Whites, Italians against Chinese, Chinese against Hispanics, Poles against the Irish. White supremacism over everyone else is portrayed, as well as the resentment and xenophobia that minorities profess towards Whites, etc. There is violence, weapons (we are in the USA), linguistic, cultural, and religious conflicts, and tattered American flags on the porches of rundown houses in degraded neighborhoods. But Eastwood clearly takes a stand for people's capacity to welcome and coexist. It's a capacity based on tolerance, empathy, and intelligence, qualities that define us as human beings before patriots.

It hasn't even been two years since Salvador Illa became president of the Generalitat, and the oasis of tranquility he enjoyed in his first months is beginning to look more and more like a mirage. For a long time now, protests in the streets have been added to the difficulties of governing in minority, with teachers being one of the most demanding groups. The ARA survey, conducted by YouGov, detects some electoral wear and tear for the PSC, but, despite everything, the socialists would consolidate their first position today if the elections were brought forward. There is no forecast of this happening, even though negotiations for the budget with ERC are still open, which adds a point of unpredictability to the calendar. The PSC would obtain between 36 and 42 seats and would see the second party in the Parlament no longer be Junts, the main victim in case of elections, but Esquerra (27-30).

Seven out of ten Spaniards believe that prostitution is a form of violence against women, a percentage that rises to 75% among the female population. Specifically, according to a survey published this Thursday by the Ministry of Equality, 69% of the Spanish population strongly or quite agrees with this statement. The data also reveals that 63% of the population would disapprove of a male relative paying for sex, a rejection that is even more pronounced among women, reaching 71.1%. Similarly, there is clear opposition among women to having a relationship with someone who pays for sex. 91.2% state that they would not be willing.

Half a century after the death of dictator Francisco Franco, the health of democracy is faltering, and it is no coincidence that social unrest is coinciding with the rise of far-right populist forces, according to a study by the Institute of Political and Social Sciences (ICPS). The survey, presented this Wednesday, explains why support for democracy in Catalonia is at its lowest level since the worst of the economic crisis of this century, in 2012. Specifically, 19.4% of Catalans, nearly one million people, are open to a dictatorial system (up from 10%), 4.9% would prefer a dictatorship at certain times, and 2.6% did not know or did not answer. In 2012, when support was at its highest point, the percentage was 19.7%. In any case, 80% remain loyal to democracybut with a downward trend.

Is it true that adolescent boys and girls and young adults today are increasingly right-wing, and that boys are increasingly sexist? Yes, and no. Yes, if we look at how they are globally portrayed in surveys. And no, if we understand that the social and demographic composition of these age groups, compared to that of fifteen or twenty years ago, is now extremely heterogeneous. Therefore, if it seems that in general back off It's not due to the poor performance of the world we come from, but rather the world we're arriving from. I mean that new social environments and communities that didn't exist before have now been added, and at an accelerated pace. And the evolution that would have been predictable in a more stable society, given school education, the critical role of the media, and all the socializing action of children in human rights and democratic principles, has been altered.

As every year, the Living Conditions Survey (CVD), a study that gives us a fairly accurate picture of how people live in Catalonia and the rest of the State. The initial picture seems pretty good. Poverty continues to decline in Catalonia, as it has since 2020. Today, 17% of the Catalan population lives below the poverty line, which means earning less than 1,000 euros per month. In Spain, this rate has been stagnant for three years.

Young people in Barcelona speak less Catalan than we thought and leave home earlier. This is what emerges from the latest Youth Survey presented this Wednesday by the Barcelona City Council based on 1,407 interviews of young people between the ages of 15 and 34 between March and July last year. Until now, the questionnaire on young people in Barcelona only included those registered as residents in the city, but in this edition it has also included those who are not but have been living in the Catalan capital for at least six monts. It has been done "to discover the social reality of the street," explained the Councillor for Children, Youth, the Elderly and People with Disabilities, Joan Ramon Riera. And including these young people, 13.4% of those surveyed, has changed things. For a start, it makes it possible to make a more realistic estimate of how many young people there are in the city and the figure rises to 404,805. Of these, 58% were not born in Barcelona, but have come to work (33%), study (27%), with their parents or other family members (22%) or for other reasons. "We are importing young people," said Riera. However, he acknowledged that the survey does not shed any light on young people who have decided to leave Barcelona and try their luck elsewhere. "We don't know how many young people Barcelona is expelling, but we do know that it is a great centre for work that creates jobs and that life here is more expensive".

Pere Aragonès is the 132nd president of the Generalitat. On Friday he was sworn in, on Monday he took office and on Wednesday he held his first government meeting with the new ministers. The in extremis pact between Junts and ERC unblocked a situation that could have led to a repetition of the elections, the first in the history of Catalonia. Instead of convening the executive council, on Wednesday the legislature would have been dissolved and the countdown would have begun for elections that, according to the Centre for Opinion Studies (CEO), Esquerra would have won alone, breaking the 14-F tie with the PSC. The Republicans would have been the most benefited and would have gone from 33 to 36-37 seats in the Parliament, and would thus surpass the Socialists, who would also have grown to 34-35, and especially JxCat, the most damaged of the three major parties, which would have fallen from 32 to 28-29 seats. That is, the difference between ERC and Junts would have widened from one MP to between 8 and 9.

Given the disagreement of the pro-independence parties eleven days before the automatic call for new elections, the first polls are beginning to be published on a new appointment at the voting booths next July. This Saturday, both La Vanguardia and El Periódico published polls which, despite differing in the distribution of seats, agree that the pro-independence party would maintain its absolute majority, at least in terms of seats. In any case, the PSC candidate, Salvador Illa, would once again be in first place; Pere Aragonès, with Esquerra, would continue to be the candidate with the best chances of becoming president, and Junts per Catalunya would follow in third place.