Madrid. After seven years living outside the country, former president Carles Puigdemont returned to Catalonia, gave a speech outside Parliament despite having a warrant for his arrest and after a police operation had been activated for his arrest, and disappeared again. Puigdemont’s presence in Catalonia was public, announced in advance and with dozens of cameras broadcasting his first political meeting live, and yet the former president was able to evade the controls and his whereabouts are still unknown. Some say he is returning to Belgium, where he has lived for seven years, and others that he is in the south of France.

Puigdemont still has an arrest warrant against him for an alleged crime of embezzlement, which according to the Spanish judges of the Supreme Court does not fall under the general amnesty law approved during this legislature and thanks to which he was exonerated from the rest of the cases opened against him, including those of the crimes of sedition and public disobedience. Hence, the former Catalan president was aware that his return to Barcelona would also entail a police operation for his arrest, but even so he announced several days in advance that he would be in Barcelona to participate in the investiture debate of the socialist Salvador Illa.

On his return to Catalonia, Puigdemont was greeted by around a thousand people at a brief rally near the Ciutadella park, where the regional parliament is located. There he gave a short speech and then quickly left the stage, hiding behind a white wall with an exit door and suddenly he was no longer there, having disappeared into the crowd.

After his disappearance, the Catalan regional police, the Mossos d’Esquadra, who were in charge of carrying out the court order for his arrest, activated for four hours what they called “Operation Cage”, which aimed to locate and arrest the former president. But it was useless. The only concrete result of the operation was the location of the vehicle in which he fled, which belonged to a Catalan regional police officer, who was subsequently arrested.

In addition, 22 people were slightly injured during the rally and subsequent disbanding of Puigdemont supporters outside Parliament. Puigdemont’s manoeuvre was also intended to prevent the formalisation of the government pact between the Socialist Party of Catalonia (PSC) and ERC, in order to push forward the investiture of the socialist Illa, who will become the third socialist leader to preside over the Generalitat since the restoration of democracy, after Pasquall Maragall and José Montilla.

In one of the most atypical parliamentary sessions of recent decades, the socialist Salvador Illa was sworn in as the new president of Catalonia thanks to the votes of three parties, the Socialist Party of Catalonia (PSC), En Comu Podem and the pro-independence Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC). However, the debate was marked by the reappearance in the region of former president Carles Puigdemont, who after seven years in “exile” decided to return to Barcelona, ​​give a brief speech in front of about a thousand supporters and then disappear again without being able to be arrested by the police force activated for that purpose.

The day on which the socialist Illa was to bury almost 15 uninterrupted years of nationalist governments, a period in which the failed unilateral independence process of 2017 was promoted, was marked by the appearance and escape of Puigdemont. Puigdemont’s presence in Catalonia was public, announced in advance and with dozens of cameras broadcasting his first political rally live, and yet the former president was able to evade the controls and his whereabouts are still unknown. Some maintain that he is on his way back to Belgium, where he has lived for seven years, and others that he is in the south of France or hiding in some corner of the north of Spain waiting for the controversy over his “incursion” into the country to subside.

After his disappearance, the Catalan regional police, the Mossos d’Esquadra, who were in charge of carrying out the court order for his arrest, activated for four hours what they called “Operation Cage”, which aimed to locate and arrest the former president. But it was useless. The only concrete result of the operation was the location of the vehicle in which he fled, which belonged to a Catalan regional police officer, who was subsequently arrested, as was another agent who also collaborated with the escape of the nationalist politician.

In addition, 22 people were slightly injured during the rally and subsequent disbanding of Puigdemont supporters outside Parliament, who were pepper-sprayed by riot police from the regional police.

Despite the fact that there was an intense police operation in Barcelona to locate the former president, that all political parties were more concerned about whether they would finally locate him or not, and that even the president of the Parliament, Josep Rull, former advisor to the Puigdemont government, considered suspending the plenary session to guarantee the rights of all deputies, in reference to the former president’s impediment to participate in the debate due to the court order against him, finally the socialist Illa managed to push through the investiture by 68 votes in favor against 66 against and will govern Catalonia until 2028. Illa thus becomes the third president of the Generalitat from the socialist ranks since the restoration of democracy, after Pasqual Maragall and José Montilla. End of note