The Republican Left of Catalonia (Catalan: Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, ERC) is a left wing Catalan independentist political party in Spain. It is also the main sponsor of the independence movement from France and Spain in the territories known among Catalan nationalists as Països Catalans. Occitan Republican Left, formed in 2008, acts as the Aranese section.
Led by Francesc Macià in 1931, the party declared an independent Catalan Republic that was curtailed by the new Constitution of the Second Spanish Republic.
In 1934, led by Lluís Companys, the elected Catalan President, the party declared an independent Catalan Republic within the Spanish Federation proposed by Companys, following the entry of right-wing ministers of CEDA into the Government of the Spanish Republic, however the party leaders (including Companys) and all the Catalan Government (called Generalitat) were arrested and jailed for this, and special autonomy laws for Catalonia were suspended until 1936.
In 1936, at the dawn of the Spanish Civil War, ERC decided to become part of the Spanish Popular Front to contest that year’s election, which it won. Esquerra became the leading force of the Popular Front in Catalonia and tried to maintain the unity of the Front in the face of growing tensions between the POUM and Communists.
The party was declared illegal (along with all other participants in the Popular Front) by Francisco Franco after he came to power in 1939 . The former president of the Catalan Generalitat, Lluís Companys, was arrested by German agents in collaboration with Vichy France, returned to Spain and executed in 1940.
The party is also federated with parties in the Balearic Islands and in Northern Catalonia in France, as well as with Republican Left of the Valencian Country in the Valencian Community. Except for their Balearic counterpart, none of the latter currently have any parliamentary representation in their respective territories, though they do hold some municipal councilors.
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Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) és un partit polític català que es defineix d’esquerra socialdemòcrata, favorable a la independència de Catalunya i dels Països Catalans.
El partit disposa de 21 diputats al Parlament de Catalunya, 1 al Parlament de les Illes Balears 1 al Parlament europeu, 3 al Congrés de Diputats espanyol i 4 regidors a l’Ajuntament de Barcelona. També disposa d’un conseller al Consell de Mallorca.
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Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (abreviado tradicionalmente ERC y de forma oficial Esquerra), Izquierda Republicana de Cataluña en castellano, es un partido político fundado en Barcelona (España) en 1931 con presencia en Cataluña y actualmente también con presencia en la Comunidad Valenciana (como Esquerra Republicana del País Valencià) e Islas Baleares y en el Rosellón francés. De ideología independentista catalana, aunque originariamente federalista, apuesta por la independencia de los territorios de lengua catalana, los Países Catalanes.
Esquerra, partido de relevantes políticos catalanes como Francesc Macià, Lluís Companys o Josep Tarradellas, desarrolló un importante papel en la política catalana y española durante la Segunda República, durante la lucha antifranquista y la Transición a la democracia.
