Opposition leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo said Sánchez was responsible for the “unbearable humiliation” of the Puigdemont escape fiasco. Feijóo called on the prime minister to fire his Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska and intelligence chief Margarita Robles.
“Faced with this farce, the government cannot continue on vacation laughing at the Spanish people,” Feijóo said.
But that’s exactly what Sánchez — and Feijóo, for that matter — have done. They have remained on holidays, perhaps in the ultimate sign that Puigdemont has become irrelevant, a summer entertainment with no political impact.
“It is a humiliation for Spain, but at the end of the day,” Torreblanca concluded, “Sánchez is president, Illa is president, and Puigdemont is not. And that, as cynical and harsh as it is, is the reality.”
“Didn’t even try”
In the sleepy border town of Portbou, nestled between the foothills of the Pyrenees and the inscrutably blue Mediterranean Sea, it was evident that police had not been searching for Puigdemont since Friday.
The town has a long history as a crossing point for smugglers and refugees. It was a famous stopover for Spanish Republicans fleeing Francisco Franco’s troops, and soon after, for Jews and intellectuals fleeing Nazi Germany, such as Hannah Arendt, Heinrich Mann and Alma Mahler, who all passed through this town.