Social life at full speed

After two years of health restrictions due to Covid-19, popular culture activities fill the agendas, and Girona FC is back in the first division league

June

Social life at full speed Foto: BARCELONA.CAT.

1. Popular culture came back to life after health restrictions during the two-year period of pandemic were finally lifted. Fairs and festivals, concerts, traditional sardanes dancing and castells, along with all kinds of traditional communal activities took to the streets with massive public attendance.

2. The Catalan parliament speaker, Laura Borràs, and the formerly jailed minister, Jordi Turull, were elected as the new heads of the Junts pro-independence party in Argelès-sur-Mer in France. The new leaders took on the role of former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and former imprisoned activist Jordi Sànchez.

3. Girona celebrated the dual promotion of the city’s football and basketball teams to their respective first divisions on June 19. Girona FC returned to La Liga after a three-season absence and the basketball team Bàsquet Girona were back in the highest basketball competition in Spain, the Liga ACB.

Social life at full speed Foto: QUIM PUIG.

4. The Besalú-born former journalist and writer Martí Gironell won the 2022 Prudenci Bertrana Award for his novel, The Maker of Memories (Columna), described as “a journey to the heart of photography”, based on the life of Valentí Fargnoli, a travelling photographer from the early 20th century.

Spying is incompatible with democracy

Spying is incompatible with democracy.

We took a look at the Catalangate scandal, which revealed Spain’s illegal spying on Catalan pro-independence leaders. Yet Catalangate is not new: the Spanish authorities have had the independence movement under surveillance for at least a century.