Thousands of people demonstrated in Galicia last Sunday to call for the "right to live in Galician" and to ask the executive to "set arrogance and anti-Galician policies aside". The march was organized by Queremos Galego, a platform made up of 500 organisations from across the country and promoted by Mesa pola Normalización Lingüística (Board for Linguistic Normalisation). The march was attended by 100,000 people -50,000 according to Santiago's local police-, which makes it one of the most crowded demonstrations in Galicia's recent history.

People from a wide range of political leanings were present. The two parties in opposition -PSG-PSOE (Spanish labour) and BNG (leftist pro-sovereignty Galician nationalists)- demonstrated together with other minority parties such as Esquerda Galega (Galician Left) and Terra Galega (center-right Galician nationalists). They all expressed their opposition to the language policies implemented by the new PP (Partido Popular, Spanish conservatives) government led by Alberto Núñez Feijóo. Demonstrators demanded the government to "rejoin consensus" as regards Galician language affairs and censured the areas where the language is still very weak, namely education and public administration.

Petition of signatures
The organisers said they would collect signatures so that Galician language is further strengthened in the autonomous Parliament by means of a Popular Legislative Initiative. The organisations thus seek to stop the "abuse" that the derogation of former decree on language in education and the compulsory test on Galician for civil servants mean.

Photo: The march in A Quintana (BNG).

Further information:

• A Nosa Terra: Unha manifestación plural e histórica a prol do galego ateiga Santiago
• La Voz de Galicia.es: Miles de personas se manifiestan en Santiago por el «dereito a vivir en galego»
• Vieiros.com: Ampla cobertura e rechamantes interpretacións dende Madrid

See the Galicia profile for further information.