The contours of Europe’s political landscape lost their familiar shape after the sovereign debt and bank crises, economic recession, the rise of anti-establishment movements and an influx of refugees and migrants.

The fallout continued this week. Angela Merkel was re-elected as German chancellor, but she lost some of her political authority. President Emmanuel Macron of France gave a powerful speech in Paris on Europe’s long-term future. Meanwhile, a showdown intensified between Catalonia’s secessionists and the Spanish authorities over a Catalan referendum on independence, planned for Sunday. Some aspects of these events bode well for Europe. Others, especially Catalan separatism, do not.

Ms Merkel deserves her fourth term as chancellor. However, her Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats — the leading parties of right and left — took their lowest combined share of the vote since the Federal Republic’s birth in 1949. The rightwing populist Alternative for Germany came third and won Bundestag seats for the first time.

Even Germany’s moderate political culture is not immune to the anti-immigrant right. Fortunately, Ms Merkel is a stateswoman of the highest calibre. Germans and other Europeans are counting on her to be a responsible guide through troubled times.

Catalonia's referendum lacks legal validity and political legitimacy © AP

Mr Macron’s speech at the Sorbonne university presented a comprehensive list of reform proposals on security and defence, migration policy, climate change and energy, agriculture, EU institutions and more. It is many years since the world heard a French president speak with such conviction about his vision for Europe. True, his address left unanswered important questions about how to strengthen the eurozone against future crises. However, Mr Macron was speaking two days after the German election. It made sense for him not to appear to put party leaders in Berlin under pressure.

Catalonia’s referendum belongs to a very different category. It lacks legal validity and political legitimacy. In their response to the gathering storm, Mariano Rajoy, Spain’s prime minister, and his ruling Popular party have been cack-handed at best. They have unnecessarily alienated many Catalans and been sluggish and unimaginative.

After the crisis erupted in 2010, when Spain’s constitutional court struck down parts of a new statute of autonomy for Catalonia, Madrid let several opportunities for talks go to waste. However, none of this makes the Spanish state the tyrannical ogre that inhabits the fantasies of Catalan separatists.

There is a world of difference between the abuses committed against Catalonia under Francisco Franco, the dictator who died in 1975, and the extensive self-government and individual freedom that the region and its people have enjoyed for the past four decades. Catalan nationalists purport to speak in the name of the whole people. It is a baseless claim. In truth, the separatists are driving forward a radical agenda that deeply divides Catalonian society. This will be evident on Sunday. Large numbers of voters will refuse to take part in the referendum because they regard it, correctly, as illegal and because they do not support secession from Spain.

Mr Rajoy has the right, indeed the absolute duty, to uphold the law. But his government would be wise to display restraint in coming days, so as not to play into the secessionists’ hands and create a roll-call of martyrs. At some stage, a fresh dialogue must start between Madrid and the Catalan authorities. Yet it must be on the basis of the rule of law. The separatists are treating this principle in the most flagrantly high-handed manner.

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