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It happened on the third year after the restoration of Catalan’s government (“Generalitat”). The highway, vertebrating column of our country, had finaly joined both Catalunya, North and South. At that time, in the French side we learnt that they planed to build, on this road, the Door of Catalunya, on the spanish side, just after the state border at La Junquera. This provoked a strong protest from some Northern Catalans’ foremen. Among these was the regretted Josep Deloncle, Chairman of the “Unio per la Regio Catalana” (U.R.C.), Custodier of the “Casa Pairal” in Perpinyà (Catalans heritage). Our protest was heard by our fellow countrymen in the south. They renamed their project “Catalan’s’door”. So we felt it was our duty to build a monument at the entry of our beautiful country The UNION FOR A CATALAN REGION (U.R.C.) March 1983: During a meeting of this movement Josep Deloncle said we should built this monument in Salses. He had previously spoken with Jordi Roudières who lives in this northernst catalan village. April 1984: A constitutive Assembly was held. Were elected, René Commes, Salses Mayor, Chairman; Armand Samso, Secretary, Maurice Auzeville, Treasurer, Josep Deloncle, Miquel Mayol, Jordi Roudières, Vice Chairmen. June 1985: State registration of this new association called “Porta dels Paisos Catalans” (PPPCC). 1986: Salses local government sells us for one simbolical franc a land of more than 3 ha. in the northern part of the village close to the limit of the occitan village of Leucat, next to the highway at a place called “Upper the windmill”, 1987: Written agreement of the state direction for public works (D.D·E.) after many tecnical meetings We start our subscription selling simbolical stones of 100 F each. SUBSCRIPTION CAMPAIGN We extended our subscription to associations, municipalities, institutions, more or less successfully, In Northern Catalunya 55 municipalities have participated according to their possibility and catalanity, Some have made a great contribution, Some important one like Prada de Conflent, Ceret and Tuir have not yet bought any “stone”, However all the people to whom we presented the project found it was interesting, This was for us very encouraging. In Perpinya, the CeDACC (Catalan municipal library) has helped us a lot buying each year 20 simbolical stones. We extended our subscription to Southern Catalunya through our participation to many events and fairs, especially at Calella fair. We also organised meetings in some important cities: Barcelona, Lleida, Tarragona. I had many encounters with Jordi Pujol, former President of the Generalitat. He became our Honor Chairman along with Pasqual Maragall, at that time Barcelona’s Mayor and Ramon Bago, former Calella’s Mayor. We received a unvaluable help from some Calella’s citizens like Josep Vilella, Josep Puig, Jordi Ten. All these friends founded later on our association in Southern Catalunya. We created delegations in the whole country. Our first representatives were: For Barcelona: Max Cahner, Josep Arque (I got to know J. Arqué when I was working as tecnical director of the newspaper “Nice Matin” at a data processing seminar in Barcelona organised by Siemens, where he worked). For Southern Catalunya: Ramon Bago, Josep Vilella, Josep Puig In 1986 we had four Honour Chairmen: MM Jordi Pujol, Pasqual Maragall, Guy Malé, Paul Alduy. Their successors have accepted to take over: MM Joan Clos, Barcelona’s Mayor, René Marquès and after on Christian Bourquin, Chairmen of the “departement” elected body (Conseil Général), Jean Paul Alduy, Perpinyà’s Mayor and Senator. June 3 1987: Oficial declaration of our Southern Association to the Generalitat of Catalunya by MM Max Cahner and Josep Arqué. The board today: Mr Ramon Bago, Chairman; Mr Josep Vilella, Secretary; Mr Josep Puig, Treasurer. 1989 elections: Marie-Claude Grégoire is elected Salses Mayor and succeed to Mr René Comes as Chairman of our Northern Association. March 9 1993: After many encounters we sign an agreement with the Generalitat represented by Mr Vallve, head of Foreign Affairs, Jacint Mora, head of Cabinet (he helped us a lot), Esteve Mach, head of historical monuments. In this agreement the Generalitat take the compromise to look for sponsors in order to help financing the monument. A first arquitect competition was organised and 15 of them presented their works. But none of them was accepted. Howewer an award was granted to three of them. In a more restricted second competition wan the project presented by Emili Armengol, world’s famous sculptor. 1995 elections: Dr Sylvain Dagues is elected Salses Mayor. He agrees to take over the chairmanship of our Northern Association. July 17 1997: Sylvain Dagues, Armand Samso, Jordi Pujol sign an agreement with the sponsors gathered by the Generalitat: Corte Inglés, Gas Natural, Enher, Cia Roca de Radiadores, Sony, Catalana Occidente. 1997: catastrophic intervention of Préfet Bernard Bonnet It was one of the worst moment of our history. During all that time and all these discussions many friends lost their fighting spirit and got out of the boat. On the board we had a strong feeling of rebellion against this situation. It was even worse when we knew the list of the people who supported Bonnet. Bascou, Rivesaltes Mayor, and Sylvain Dagues himself were among these. At the board’s meeting Armand shouted at him. He tried to justify himself putting forward religious feelings toward a Préfet who had been put in jail. Before that on August 2, 1997 we received at Salses City Hall a letter from him where he stated that he had heard about a monument but that his administration had never been advised. Everyone knows this is a lie, as explained above. I asked him for an audience but he did not answer me. But some weeks after that he left us and was assigned to Corsica where his deeds have been even less glorious. 1998: a new Prefet, Pierre Dartout His follower Mr Pierre Dartout was much more courteous and simpatical than him. Many times I met him alone or with the Mayor. But we could not get his agreement. It was clear that he did not want to go against the permission delivered by the state engineer and against Bonnet’s decision. On October 28, 1998 an official letter was received at Salses City Hall. They said it was not possible to build a monument at the place we had choosen because this would overload the transit on road N9. This was a only a pretext but we finally got an official and written answer. After an analisis of the new situation we made an exchange of land with the municipality. On the other side of the highway we choosed a place where you get going through wineyards, thyme, rosemary, lavander, fennel, and all the perfumes of our “garriga”. But we had to order new studies in order to find the right place to locate the monument. Cost: 60.800 euros. If we had followed the official way in order to obtain French state agreemen this would have taken some more years. So a committee constituted by Miquel Mayol, Sylvain Dagues, the arquitect Salvador Fernandez and Armand Samso had to get the opinion of some lawyers. (Cost: 2162, 80 Euros. After an acurate study of the law we found that if the monument was realized by the city, if ist height was below 12 m and its volum under 46 m3 we would not need any Some days before the inauguration Once the foundations were made we decided to celebrate it through a big demonstration with many representatives from both sides of the border. This was a great day. We already could imagine how would be our Porta. On June 3 2003 huge lorries “gondoles” brought the monument into pieces. I don’t mention here the many problems we had to tackle to bring it to the platform: we needed huge crancs and special trucks. It was a hard time with lot of emotions. Visca Catalunya ! Armand Samso i Gaixet, Chairman |