Anti-migration and anti-Muslim sentiment has replaced secession as the main force driving voters in Catalonia, a wealthy region of Spain, almost a decade after a failed independence bid. The new far-right party Catalan Alliance, known as AC, wants a crackdown on migration and presents Islam as a threat to society. It has surged in the polls in a region with the largest Muslim population in Spain.
Polls predict the party will become the second-biggest political force in Catalonia behind the Socialists at the next regional election, scheduled for 2028. The party has capitalised on anti-migrant feeling that has spread across Europe, where far-right parties have won power or votes in Germany, Italy and France.
Catalan Alliance’s roots in the town of Ripoll
Catalan Alliance was founded in Ripoll, a small town near the French border. Members of a cell based there plotted an attack on Barcelona in 2017 that killed 16 people and was claimed by ISIL. Silvia Orriols, the party’s leader, is also the town’s mayor, and she became fervently anti-Muslim after the attack.
Orriols warned that “if there is no substantial change, the prospects for Catalonia are bleak.” She pointed to a decline in the use of Catalan, growing insecurity and crime, mass immigration, and what she described as fiscal plundering by Spain. She said her party stood for “those who have not surrendered to globalisation and barbarism.”
The party currently holds just two seats in the Catalan parliament. However, polls suggest it could rival the Socialists in running a region that accounts for 20 percent of the Spanish economy.
Muslim residents fear a backlash in Catalonia
The rise of the party has alarmed Muslims, who fear a backlash in a country that had previously seemed welcoming. Soukayna El Abdi, president of the Young Moroccans of Ripoll, said the party’s growth had surprised everyone in her community.
El Abdi said most people come to integrate, work and live alongside others, and that the party’s rise is built on “unfounded hate.” She said it spreads claims about her community that are not true. She added that she was very scared for her parents and two brothers who still live in the town, and that the racism affecting Muslims began after the 2017 attack.
She also said that Orriols’ daughters had once been friends with her cousins, but that this changed after the Catalan Alliance leader entered politics.
Support for the party is also visible among ordinary residents. Eduard Lopez, a businessman from Molins de Rei near Barcelona, said all his friends backed Catalan Alliance. He said there were too many migrants and that Islam was a threat. “These other independence parties are from the past,” he said. “They failed to do what they said they would.”
Poll projections and the wider debate in Spain
Spain will hold a snap general election in November, and polls show the conservative People’s Party and the far-right Vox gaining support. The rise of Catalan Alliance points to a shift towards the right in the eurozone’s fourth-biggest economy.
The party backs independence and has drawn support from other secessionist parties, Together for Catalonia and Catalan Republican Left, which were behind the failed 2017 bid to break away from Spain. A poll for El Mundo newspaper, published in September, projected the following results if an election were held:
- Catalan Alliance: 25 to 28 seats, with 16.7 percent of the vote
- Socialists: largest party, losing 10 seats, with 19 to 22 seats and 23.3 percent of the vote
- All other secessionist parties: expected to lose seats
According to the Spanish National Statistics Institute, a fifth of Spain’s population of nearly 50 million was born abroad. Colombians, Venezuelans and Moroccans are the three largest groups by nationality. The Union of Islamic Federations of Spain says there are 2.4 million Muslims in the country, with the largest community in Catalonia.
Juan Ignacio Castien Maestro, a specialist in Islamic affairs at the Complutense University in Madrid, said anti-Muslim feeling has risen in Spain in recent years. He said the Muslim migrant has become a symbol of problems such as the housing crisis and unemployment. “It plays on feelings of insecurity,” he said.
Jose Pablo Martínez, a migration specialist at the Real Elcano Institute, a think tank in Madrid, said the left-wing Spanish government takes a more favourable approach to migration than many other European countries. He noted, however, that “certain sections of the population consider migrants to be competing for their jobs and housing.”
