Puigdemont's return and escape: 'We are still here, long live free Catalonia'. And on X: 'I am in Waterloo after difficult days'

Carles Puigdemont has returned to Spain, seven years after fleeing abroad to avoid imprisonment. The former president of the Catalan Generalitat defied the arrest warrant that still exists against him and managed, without being stopped by the police, to arrive in Barcelona and reach the Passeig de Lluis Companys, where Junts, his independence party, organised a welcome rally in his honour. He then disappeared among his supporters, avoiding police checks and checkpoints.

"I have come here today to remind you that we are still here: we have no right to give up, because the right to self-determination belongs to the peoples," Puigdemont said, relaunching Catalonia's separatist cause in front of thousands of supporters gathered a few hundred metres from the Catalan parliament. 'Today, many thought they were celebrating my arrest,' he continued, 'and thought this threat would make us give up. But we are still here. I don't know how long it will be before we see each other again, but whatever happens I hope we can shout again: long live free Catalonia!"

The 61-year-old independence leader had fled abroad in 2017, after the referendum on secession and after the Catalan Assembly's unilateral declaration of independence, to escape imprisonment and the Spanish judiciary's extremely harsh response against the leaders of Catalonia's secessionist season. Puigdemont then remained mostly in self-exile in Belgium, even being elected to the European Parliament.

Even after the approval of the amnesty law that cancelled the convictions and trials of the Catalan leaders (a measure much contested by the oppositions but negotiated and desired by the Spanish government of socialist Pedro Sanchez in agreement with the autonomist parties of the region), the arrest warrant for Puigdemont related to the misuse of public funds remained in force. While the most serious charges including that of sedition were annulled.

The law of 'amnesty for the political, institutional and social normalisation in Catalonia' annulled the prosecutions and convictions of hundreds of Catalan politicians and activists involved in the secessionist season that culminated in the 2017 referendum and unilateral declaration of independence. The amnesty was agreed by the leftist government with the regional independence parties. However, according to the Spanish Supreme Court, it does not cover crimes such as misappropriation of public funds, if done for profit or if it harms the financial interests of the European Union. This is why the arrest warrant for Puigdemont, and for other Catalan activists such as Toni Comin and Lluis Puig, former collaborators of Puigdemont, accused of embezzlement, remains valid.