Retired bullfighter Vicente Barrera has been picked as the new vice president and culture minister of the Valencia region by the far-right Vox (ECR) and conservative PP (EPP) governing coalition.
Barrera appeared as one of the lead Valencian figures of far-right Vox when he attended the coalition negotiations on June 13 next to the party’s number one, Carlos Flores.
Flores was sidelined due to his conviction for gender-based violence in 2002, and Barrera thus became the lead figure of the party.
Even though the ex-matador does not have a parliamentary seat, his important role within the party awarded him the position within the Valencian government on Thursday after three days of negotiations between Vox and PP.
“I am stepping forward to assume the Vice-Presidency of the Generalitat [Valencian government]. It is time to work to return this land to the prosperity it deserves. It will be an honour”, Barrera said on Twitter.
Barerra studied law at the University of Valencia before beginning his bullfighting career in 1992 and retiring in 2011. His successes allowed him to get close to the Valencian political right-wing spectrum.
He was a regular presence at PP rallies, and in October 2011 he received from then-president right-wing PP Alberto Fabra the High Distinction of the Generalitat Valenciana “in recognition of his contribution to the survival and enjoyment of the Fiesta de los Toros” and his career “full of dedication, sacrifice and success”, as reported in eldiario.es.
In 2018 he became a member of the far-right Vox, a party that ”was missing in Spain”, he said. Initially, he just participated in the party’s internal structure as a coordinator, but in 2019, he started appearing on electoral lists.
The appointment of Barrera is part of the PP-Vox coalition agreement, which includes, among others, the derogation of the Memory Law – a regulation ensuring that the crimes during Franco’s dictatorship are unveiled and recognised by the authorities. Instead, they push for a new law on Signs of Identity “that protects the values and customs and traditions of the Valencian Community as an essential part of the [cultural] plural wealth of Spain”.
Barerra is a controversial figure as he has commented in favour of Francisco Franco’s dictatorship in the past.
Franco’s fascist dictatorship from 1939 to 1975 saw Spaniards under unprecedented ideological and physical repression, with as many as 200,000 victims falling prey to the ‘White Terror’ of his regime.
In August 2020, Barrera said on social media that “the politicians of the right should cure themselves of the anti-Franco complex.”
He added that “the political class of Francoism was brilliant and surely the most educated and prepared we have had in centuries; no one should be ashamed of having been a minister under Franco, or that their father or grandfather was one,” eldiario.es reported.
“I am also proud to be the grandson of those who gave their blood and won the war [Spanish civil war]. Any state and any democracy and any freedom is built on a war”.
“Why is it an insult to win a war? In any case, it would have to be insulting to have lost it, and in that way, and with those sinister [Republican, anti-fascist] flags”, he said.
Reacting to Barrera’s appointment, political scientist Alan Barroso said: “The bullfighter Vicente Barrera will be vice-president and minister of culture of the Valencian Community. Animal torture representing Valencian culture. This goes back decades in days. This is putting Vox in the governments”.
As for the broader matter of the Vox-PP coalition, Presidency Minister Félix Bolaños said: “When Mr Feijóo [leader of PP] told us that Vox was a populist, extremist force, that he would not agree with them, he lied to us”, adding that “when the Popular Party [PP] agrees with Vox, it is agreeing with chauvinists, with xenophobes, with homophobes, with abusers”.
(Max Griera | EURACTIV.com, edited by Alice Taylor)
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