The maquis in Catalonia

During the Civil War and Francoism Very important figures appeared in the history of Spain, people who faced the injustices marked by the Franco dictatorship. They were the maquis. The maquis operated in much of Spain, being very important those who lived in Catalonia. Due to the importance of the maquis of this region, today in this lesson from a PROFESSOR we are going to offer you a summary of the maquis in Catalonia so that you better know this moment in the history of Spain.

The word "maqui" comes from the Italian word "macchia", which gives meaning to a kind of bush and was used to refer to these guerrillas because they hid from enemy troops and attacked by surprise.

The term maqui it began to be used in France as a denomination for those guerrillas who faced the Germans during the occupation of the French country in World War II. The French influence caused the guerrillas who faced the fascist side during and after the Spanish Civil War to receive the denomination of

maquis. These people were the ones who they had "thrown themselves into the mountains" and they had started a guerrilla war against the Franco government, a battle that they had difficult to win.

The maquis were a varied group, being part of them the "fugitives", the deserters and the fled of sentences after the war.

To continue with this lesson about the Maquis in Catalonia, we must talk about the main Maquis guerrilla groups that acted in the Catalan community. These are mainly two: Front Nacional de Catalunya and Agrupació Guerrillera de Catalunya.

The National Front of Catalonia

It was a patriotic front from 1940 to 1946 and, later, a political party with a clear Catalan nationalist ideology that disappeared in the 1990s. It has its origin in France, being formed by a series of Catalan exiles entrenched in Paris.

The original idea was that all the Catalan nationalist parties will take part, trying to become strong against the Franco government, but this was not the case, since not all parties wanted to be part of this group. As a guerrilla group, they served as spies for the English government from within the Spanish state, receiving equipment from Great Britain, such as a radio.

For years they carried out actions such as graffiti or the placing of flags against the regime, but the lack of weapons prevented them from carrying out an organized defense against Franco's men. In 1946 they received very hard blows after several defeats and the loss of some of their leaders, which made them lose much of the weapons they had acquired over the years. After that, the Front left its formation as a patriotic front, and became a political party.

Guerrilla Group of Catalonia

This grouping was an armed resistance group against the Franco government formed after the failed invasion attempt of the Aran Valley. They had their area of ​​operations in the Sierra de Prades and in the area of ​​the Girona Pyrenees, their base being the town of Manlleu, a municipality in the province of Barcelona.

This group carried out numerous activities in several Catalan cities, following a style of guerrilla fighting, trying to show itself as opponents of the Franco government. Some of these activities are the following:

• Placing explosives in bars frequented by the Francoist authorities.
• Placing explosives in the newspaper La Vanguardia, whose objective was the murder of Luis Martínez de Galinsoga.
• Placing explosives in the premises of the FET and JONS, the only party of the Franco government.
• Assaults on shops.