Minister of Education, Esther Niubó, has hired a PSC councillor with a history of comments considered Catalanophobic as a senior official in the department. Víctor García Correas, currently the first deputy mayor of Rubí (Vallès Occidental) and head of the Education area, will take on the role of Coordinator of Strategic Projects for the Directorate of Educational Improvement starting June 22.
García's political career has been marked by language-related controversies. In February of last year, during a municipal plenary session, he denied the unity of the Catalan language, stating that Catalan, Valencian, and Mallorcan were not the same language, and accused an opposition councillor of having a “proto-imperialist vision” for defending it. Although he later apologized and rectified, he had made inflammatory statements years prior.
The Intersindical union has strongly rejected García's appointment. Its spokesperson, Marc Martorell, stated: “It is absolutely inadmissible for a person who has publicly denied the unity of the Catalan language to assume responsibilities in a secretariat responsible for promoting the country's educational and linguistic policies.” The union believes the government is sending a worrying message to the entire educational community at a time of linguistic emergency.
In the municipal plenary session of February last year, García defended linguistic secessionism in response to councillor Marina Dolset, claiming that Catalan, Valencian, and Mallorcan have significant syntactic differences. Although he apologized hours later, admitting his words “were not at all appropriate,” years earlier, in 2019, he had criticized language immersion by questioning the use of Spanish in schools.
Intersindical points to the PSC's responsibility and criticizes the appointment occurring amidst an educational conflict and the declining presence of Catalan in schools. The union demands explanations from the Department of Education and the PSC regarding the appointment criteria, arguing that any responsibility in the educational and linguistic field should be linked to a commitment to Catalan.
