MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Counter march with Catalonian and Spanish flags: “Enough! streets belong to everyone”

Some 120.000 people marched down Barcelona's central Gracia thoroughfare with Spanish and Catalan flags and chanting “that's enough; streets belong to everyone”

Tens of thousands of people marched on Sunday for Spanish unity, staging a counter-rally in Barcelona a day after 300,000 Catalan separatists held a protest over the jailing of nine regional leaders.

Some 120.000 people, according to a police estimate, marched down Barcelona's central Gracia thoroughfare waving Spanish and Catalan flags and chanting “that's enough” and “the streets belong to everyone” to counter the separatist claim that “the streets will always be ours”.

Catalonia, a wealthy northeastern region that is home to some 7.5 million people, has been bitterly divided as its calls for independence from the central government in Madrid have grown over the past few years.

Unrest has gripped the region since an Oct 14 Spanish Supreme Court verdict handed lengthy jail terms to regional leaders behind a banned 2017 referendum and a short-lived declaration of independence.

The ruling prompted waves of protest as Spain wrestles with its worst political crisis in decades.

Neither camp can point to majority support. An opinion poll published in July by the Catalan regional government showed 44 per cent support for independence with 48.3 per cent opposed.

Sunday's rally was called by the Catalan Civil Society (SCC) association, which said it wanted to show that those opposing secession from the rest of Spain comprise a “silent majority”.

“That is an important message for Catalonia, Spain and the world,” said SCC chairman Fernando Sanchez Costa.

The protesters adopted a manifesto at the end of the rally stating: “We demand an end to this absurd gamble that we have been dragged into.”