A woman was injured yesterday when she was struck in the face by what was thought to have been a stone during a pro-unity demonstration in Palma.
Rallies supporting Spanish union and opposing Catalan independence took part in cities across the country. In Palma, the number of people who participated, according to the National Police, reached 6,500. Apart from the woman who received the injury, there were other incidents, including an attack on a stall for the Assemblea Sobiranista per Mallorca in the calle Sant Miquel. This association, which is supportive of Catalan independence, regularly has a stall on a Saturday. Its leader, Cristòfol Soler, who for a brief time in the 1990s was a Partido Popular president of the Balearics, said that he was shocked by what happened. The stall was torn down, insults were hurled and the people manning the stall were spat at.
The march ended at the regional government headquarters, the Consolat del Mar, where there were calls for President Armengol to resign. Banners and slogans made the demonstrators' views clear - "Puigdemont to prison", "We are Majorcans, not Catalans". A great deal of support was voiced for the state security forces, for King Felipe and for Spain.
Among those who took part was Joan Font Rosselló of the Fundació Jaume III, which is anti-Catalan. He said that insults were coming from the sovereignty association as well. Ones directed towards Soler and his companions included "traitors to your homeland" and "fight for Majorca, not for Catalonia". Certain members of the PP also took part, such as former Balearic president, José Ramón Bauzá, and the current leader of the PP in Palma, Marga Duran, who condemned aggressions that had occurred.
Meanwhile, the holding company CriteriaCaixa, which is one hundred per cent owned by Fundación Bancaria La Caixa, has announced that it is moving its headquarters to Palma on account of the "current situation" in Catalonia. This doesn't reverse the decision already taken to move the registered office of CaixaBank to Valencia, albeit the holding company does control the bank.