Catalonia’s Existential Crisis Is Dominating the Spanish Vote

It didn’t take long for Gerard García to fall out with his father over politics after returning home to Barcelona. The argument flared during their car journey from the airport; the subject was the future of Catalonia. At a stoplight, Gerard swung open the passenger door and bolted.

The family fight happened months before Catalonia’s 2017 push for independence, which was crushed by authorities in Madrid. García’s father, José Manuel, argued that Catalans contribute more in tax revenue than they get back. He felt betrayed when Gerard, an investment banker who lives in Madrid, accused him of buying the separatist spin and argued that the secession drive was a distraction from problems such as unemployment, which Spain could better address united. “There’s a false narrative that’s being told in Spain, and my son had bought that narrative,” says José Manuel, 59, who sells construction products for a French company. He no longer reads national newspapers and gets most of his news about Spain from Catalan pro-independence media. “Afterward you think, how can you argue with your son like that? But my feelings are just so strong.”