The new location of the image of the Virgen de los Desamparados of the Valencia City Council and the removal of the LGTB banner on the occasion of the celebration of Pride 2023 have led this Saturday the first scuffle between the new government, made up of the PP, and Compromís , in the municipal opposition.
Moments before the plenary session of the constitution of the new municipal corporation began, the acting mayor until now, Joan Ribó, has denounced, through a message published on his social networks, that the “first real government action” of Catalá had been “remove the LGTB flag from the balcony of the Town Hall”, which had been placed this Friday.
A gesture that Ribó has interpreted as an attempt to “hide diversity and go against people’s rights”. “Today begins the fight to recover the future”, she has written.
The city’s PP responded to this message, from its Twitter profile, assuring that the banner had not been removed by the ‘popular’, since María José Catalá “is not mayor until she takes office”, and has slipped that it had been “the government of Ribó”.
In addition, the Popular Municipal Group showed an internal email in which the councilor for Resource Management, Luisa Notario, also from Compromís, ordered its withdrawal for the 17th, being put back on the 24th and 28th (days of the Parade and Pride Day itself) and withdrawn the following day. PP sources assured that the flag will be put up again on those dates.
After that, from Compromís they have reproached the PP that it had also been “a miracle” that the image of the Virgen de los Desamparados appeared on the first floor of the City Hall during the plenary session of the constitution, just “before Catalá was appointed mayoress”.
Asked about this question, municipal sources of the PP have transmitted that the decision to transfer the image of the Virgen de los Desamparados did come from the ‘populares’, who since this Saturday hold the municipal government. On the contrary, regarding the withdrawal of the LGTBI banner, they have assured that they have had “nothing to do with it”.
In fact, in the internal note of the Department of Resource Management – area on which the installation of the banners that are hung on the balcony depends -, to which Europa Press has had access, it is established that the support will be it would be placed from 8:00 a.m. on June 16, 24, and 28, and it would be withdrawn at 8:00 a.m. on the 17, 25, and 29 days of the same month.
The acting mayor until this Saturday and now spokesman for Compromís in the City Council, Joan Ribó, asked by the media about this issue at the end of the plenary session of the constitution, has assured that he “hopes, wishes and will ask” that this flag, “to be He proposed that the days before Pride be put on again, continue to be put on”.
Regarding the Virgin, Ribó has pointed out that the image “has a very clear connotation of the time of the war” and has defended the position of his government that the best location for the carving “was in the museum to distinguish the subject of the image and everything that had happened at the level of historical memory”.
The image of the Virgen de los Desamparados of the Valencia City Council, which left this building due to the remodeling works of the Historical Museum of the city located in it, returned last week to the consistory although it was placed in a different location than the one it traditionally occupied in the environment of the aforementioned museographic space.
Initially, there was talk of a new location for this Virgen de los Desamparados in the City Museum as the one that traditionally occupied in the City Hall was affected by the remodeling works of the Historical Museum, but in the end it was concluded that it would be back in the consistory.
The ultimate decision was that the image of the patron saint be installed in the City Hall exhibition hall, located inside the building itself and with access from Arzobispo Mayoral street. In this regard, the one who until this Saturday has been Councilor for Heritage and Cultural Resources, Glòria Tello, stressed that the Virgin will return to “a space that can be visited” and “for a historical and cultural matter.”
