Macià, Francesc, 1859-1933, Spanish politician, Catalan nationalist leader. An army officer, he joined the separatist movement in Catalonia and was elected to the Cortes in 1907. Exiled briefly in 1917 for political activism, he returned to found (by 1922) the Catalan nationalist movement, Estat Català. He was exiled again in 1924. From Paris he directed an ineffective movement to establish a Catalan republic, plotting unsuccessfully an invasion of Catalonia (1926). After the fall of Primo de Rivera, he returned (1930) to Barcelona and became (1931) the first president of the Catalan republic. In 1932 he made an agreement with the central government at Madrid by which Catalonia was recognized as an autonomous region.

Francesc Macià i Llussà (October 21, 1859 - December 25, 1933) was a Catalan soldier, politician and President of the Catalan government.

Life

He achieved the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the Spanish army. He condemned the assault of some Spanish officers on the journal La Veu de Catalunya in 1905, and was forced to abandon the army.

He was the representative for Barcelona from 1914 to 1923.

In 1922 he founded the independentist party Estat Català.

In 1926 he attempted an insurrection against the Spanish dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera. This uprising was based in Prats de Molló (Roussillon). Although it was aborted by the French Gendarmerie, it gained a lot of popularity for his cause in Catalonia.

In 1931, after the elections that caused the exile of Alfonso XIII of Spain and gave the local majority to his party Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC), Macià proclaimed the Free Catalan Republic in Barcelona, but was forced afterwards to settle for partial autonomy within the new Spanish Republic. Macià was the President of Generalitat from 1932 until his death in 1933. He is buried in the Cementiri del Sud-Oest on Barcelona's Montjuïc.

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See also

• Plaça de Francesc Macià, Barcelona

External links

• Biography (Catalan)
• Macià proclaming the Catalan Republic