Calella and Ripoll, the alarms that awakened the anti-immigration pulse of Junts

Manuel García goes back to 2019 to talk about the “insecurity problem” that affects his town, Calella (Barcelona). He speaks of mass fights involving unaccompanied migrant minors and a growing sense of lack of control. “The City Council said that it was our perception but, in the end, they proved us right,” defends the resident of this town on the Barcelona coast that in the sixties was a pioneer in mass tourism and that is now trying to reposition itself as best it can. in the face of tough competition. García is a member of the Calella Centro neighborhood association and maintains that on the streets of this town of 18,000 inhabitants (18.5% of them born outside of Spain) there is no talk of anything other than insecurity. And he does not hesitate to point out that this perception is “always” related to a single phenomenon: immigration.

The mayor of Calella, Marc Buch, led a movement within his party, Junts per Catalunya, in December to bluntly demand the expulsion of repeat offenders of foreign origin. Shortly after launching this claim, he received the support of another dozen mayors, all from his party and from the same region (Maresme), in the same sense. The irregulars who commit crimes must be expelled, they agreed. “If they have not come to integrate and work like the majority of the population does, they have no place in our house,” defended Buch. The mayor exploded after a group of criminals attacked local police officers who were putting out a fire caused in a block of buildings in the municipality. Buch assured that this group did not reach a dozen people and accumulated 260 arrests in half a year.

The Junts leadership did not take 24 hours to support the demands of these mayors. “The system fails, from Catalonia we cannot decide anything,” said the general secretary of Junts, Jordi Turull, ignoring that the Penal Code already provides for the possibility of expelling criminals and that the Generalitat has powers in the integration of migrants in addition to the of citizen security.

Turull's words have made sense this week with the surprising announcement made by Junts in Congress last Wednesday that it had managed to get an agreement from the PSOE so that the Generalitat has the “comprehensive delegation” of immigration powers. The objective is, according to Turull himself, to control migratory flows, expel foreign repeat offenders — “we have to look at the conditions under which these people can be expelled” — and make Catalan a “language of integration.” Criticism of Junts for this drift, which ERC places on the “extreme right”, has been a constant since then.

A walk through the streets of Calella does not serve to perceive the feeling of insecurity that some neighbors speak of, but the multiculturalism of the municipality is evident. On Església Street, a mural boasts: “Calella, the best store in Maresme.” Just a few meters from these words, several businesses run by foreigners. Greengrocers, hairdressers or mobile repair shops. None of these businessmen knew that Junts claims immigration powers, but they all knew that there is a “little group” that is creating insecurity in the municipality. The mayor, one of those who has pushed towards the hardening of Junts' immigration discourse, prefers not to make statements to EL PAÍS, but he does speak through a municipal spokesperson: “Buch wants to publicly express his gratitude to Turull and the rest of the leaders. who are carrying out the negotiations. He thanks them for supporting the prayers and demands of the mayors of Maresme who carried out the protest.”

Calella is far from being an isolated case in the political universe of Junts, Carles Puigdemont's party. The party has experienced another bitter episode in one of the municipalities of inland Catalonia of which it has held the mayor's office for years: Ripoll. In this town of Girona, with 10,600 inhabitants, the May municipal elections ended in a storm. Junts gave up the first position to Aliança Catalana, a local party almost unknown outside the population that champions its independence movement, Islamophobia and its identity positions. The far-right independence movement thus achieved control of its first town hall. The alarms have not stopped ringing since then in the Junts chats, who fear the expansion of this party and even that it could make the leap to the Parliament.

The formula of the new mayor of Ripoll, Sílvia Orriols, was to exploit the pain and incomprehension of many residents of the town who in the summer of 2017 discovered with horror that young people had left (and lived there since they were children) from this peaceful town in the Pre-Pyrenees. who perpetrated the Islamist attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils on August 17. Asking about the political climate and immigration on the streets of Ripoll does not generate big headlines. The residents prefer to opt for politically correct answers apart from having given the mayoralty to someone with a clearly xenophobic speech. The mayor does want to speak. “In Ripoll, last May we removed five councilors from Junts. They have learned and changed their speech. But let no one be fooled, they have no real will to end the immigration problem. They don't even have the courage and they don't even really think about doing it,” defends Orriols in statements to this newspaper. The ultra-mayor criticizes that if the Generalitat had powers over immigration it would be of little use: “ [Pere] Aragonès is capable of welcoming even more immigrants or stopping expulsions. Let's see if having more powers in the end will be counterproductive.”

Mousa Elkasme has been living in Ripoll for 25 years. She works in garbage collection in the region (Ripollès) and laments: “Since the attacks there are many neighbors who have shown us hatred. We thought that Junts was by our side but it is clear that they are not.” Elkasme assures that, since Orriols has been in charge of the council, registering in the municipality, if you are a foreigner, has become an obstacle course. “Sometimes they send the municipal police to the address to verify if it is true that those who want to register live there. There are children who cannot go to school for weeks because registering is impossible. If this is what Junts wants, we will have to look for other parties to help us,” she concludes.

Ali Yassine is the president of the Annour mosque in Ripoll – where Es Satty, the intellectual leader of the 17-A attacks, served as imam – he also does not have friendly words towards the mayor: “Orriols does not even know what he is saying. In Ripoll there are no coexistence problems.” He is surprised by Junts' interest in exercising immigration powers, although he does not give it any value: “Here there are undocumented immigrants who get into trouble with fights or drugs and have never deported anyone at all. “The parties say these things to win votes.” Both Calella and Ripoll are municipalities of a few thousand inhabitants, where Junts knows that the immigration control discourse can be successful. “To vote we need nationality and that is at least ten years. I asked for it in 2011 and they denied it. I have not requested it again,” explains Elkasme.

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