41 French senators urged Emmanuel Macron‘s government and the EU to take action in order for Spain to engage in dialogue with Catalonia – but Paris has already ruled this option out.
In a manifesto released on Sunday, 41 French representatives called for ‘respect for fundamental rights and freedoms in Catalonia’ and denounced ‘repression’ by Spanish authorities – which, according to them, has led Catalan politicians being in jail and exile.
For the senators, Spain is perpetrating a ‘true attack against democratic rights and freedoms’.
They also asked the French government not to underestimate the situation and called for the Élysée Palace and the EU to intervene in order to ‘restore the conditions of dialogue’ between Spain and Catalonia and ‘find democratic solutions to a political issue’.
Yet Macron’s government has already rejected taking action on the grounds that it would be ‘interfering’ in Spanish internal affairs, such as ‘ongoing judicial proceedings’.
A statement published on Monday reads that it has ‘full confidence in Spanish democracy to launch a peaceful political dialogue, respecting constitutional legality and the rule of law.’
The French European affairs minister, Nathalie Loiseau, added on Twitter that the French government has always been constant in the ‘strict respect towards Spanish constitutional rules’.
‘This topic is Spain’s responsibility,’ she added.
The Spanish ambassador in France and Spain’s foreign minister have also criticised the manifesto of the 41 senators. The latter, Minister Josep Borrell, denounced the ‘alarming level of misinformation’ of the representatives in the French senate.