/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/CQ3P6MWZMVLQFXFYWY2XBIKI6U.jpg "Manuel Valls, to the rest of councilors of the plenary session of Barcelona: “Today I am happy not to be with you” | Catalonia")
The former French Prime Minister and current councilor of the Barcelona City Council, Manuel Valls, began his speech this morning in the plenary session of the Consistory with a sour message addressed to the councilors of the rest of the political groups: “After what happened in the last plenary session I am happy not to be with you ”. Valls, this morning, was not in the plenary room. In fact, only 15 of the 41 aldermen were present in the Session; the rest, following the recommendations for social distancing to avoid the spread of covid-19, are following the session electronically. The former French prime minister has begun his speech rejoicing that he is away from his peers before criticizing the state of the city.
In the plenary session of May, an institutional declaration promoted by the ERC was approved condemning the expulsion of gypsies to France between 2012 and 2014 when Manuel Valls was Minister of the Interior. ERC, BComú, PSC and JxCat voted in favor. In addition, during the reading of the institutional statement, the ERC councilor, Elisenda Alamany, demanded -without being agreed with the other parties in the statement- Valls his resignation. Colau asked Alamany to withdraw that expression and opened a point of order in plenary.
When it was Valls’s turn, he energetically called the declaration an “insult to the French Republic.” The councilor branded the Republicans as “excluding nationalists” and said that Colau had voted in favor of the declaration because he “lives with sin” of having accepted the vote of the former French minister to obtain the investiture and is now seeking “forgiveness” by approving these statements against him.
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