THOUSANDS PROTEST PLANNED CATALAN PARDON.

MADRID Tens of thousands of Spaniards protested in Madrid on Sunday against government plans to pardon 12 Catalan politicians who were convicted over the region’s failed independence bid in 2017, a move the demonstrators see as a threat to national unity.

Spain’s Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo gave the clearest indication yet that the pardons of the Catalan separatists were “close” in an interview published on Sunday with La Vanguardia newspaper, but the issue has bitterly divided Spaniards.

Around 63 per cent of Spaniards oppose granting the pardons while some 25 per cent backed it and about six per cent were indifferent, according to a poll published on Sunday for niusdiario.es, an online newspaper.

“We should stop this now because for a pardon you must show contrition, and the separatists will not show that,” Carlos Bandecha, 47, a businessman, said at the rally, where many protesters waved red and yellow national flags.

Opposition lawmakers from the conservative People’s Party (PP), the far-right Vox party and the centrist Ciudadanos joined the rally in Madrid’s central Plaza Colon.

Asked when Spain’s centre-left government might approve the pardons, Calvo told Vanguardia: “Soon, they are close.”