Support for independence jumps, Catalan government poll shows

The percentage of Catalans who now support independence for the region has shot higher in the last few months, according to a poll conducted by the regional government.

Of the 1,500 people canvassed between 16 and 29 October by the Centre d' Estudis d'Opinio, 48.7% answered that they supported independence, 7.6 percentage points more than in June.

Meanwhile, the proportion of those who said they did not back independence fell by 5.8 percentage points to hit 43.6%.

Somewhat surprisingly, the same poll also revealed that the main Catalan nationalist parties would again win a majority of seats in the regional assembly after the 21 December elections.

That result was in stark contrast with the results of separate poll published by daily El Mundo, on 28 September, and conducted between the 23 and 26 of the same month, showing that the nationalists would suffer a moderate setback and lose their narrow majority.

Also on Tuesday, recently sacked Catalan president Carles Puigdemont claimed he did not travel to Belgium to seek asylum and that he would return to Spain "immediately" if he were offered the necessary 'guarantees'.

He also challenged Madrid "to accept" the results of the 21 December elections.

To take note of too, another poll published the same day, this time by Sigma Dos for daily El Mundo, revealed that over the past two months and at the national level, the far-left party Podemos had lost just over four percentage points of voters' backing, to reach 15.3%.