Tabarnia takes to the streets

Tabarnians takes to the streets. A parody of the Catalan independence movement which vindicates a fictional region encompassing the Barcelona and Tarragona areas, the Platform for Tabarnia gathered some 15,000 people on Saturday rallying under an unlikely motto: “The joke is over.”

It started as a mockery on social media, subsequently promoted by unionist politicians and Madrid-based newspapers, and gained even more prominence when Catalan playwright and actor Albert Boadella appointed himself as “president in exile”—a parody of Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, who traveled to Belgium last October after being dismissed by the Spanish government for declaring independence.