The amnesty will cover about 400 people involved in the independence bid that came to a head in 2017, including separatists but also police involved in clashes with activists. The independence referendum was declared illegal by the courts and resulted in Spain's worst political crisis for decades. The amnesty will be the largest in Spain since the 1977 blanket amnesty for crimes committed during the Francisco Franco dictatorship, and the first amnesty law approved in the European Union since 1991, according to Spain's CSIC research council. Protesters, including neo-Nazi groups, have held rowdy demonstrations outside the Socialist headquarters in Madrid for 15 nights consecutively since the deal was announced. In a survey by Metroscopia in mid-September, around 70% of respondents - 59% of them Socialist supporters – said they were against the idea of an amnesty.

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Persons: Catalonia's, Pedro Sanchez, Sanchez, Alberto Nunez Feijoo, Santiago Abascal, Francisco Franco, Metroscopia, –, Graham Keeley, Susana Vera, Raul Cadenas, Silvio Castellanos, Clelia Oziel, Mike Harrison Organizations: Spain's Socialists, Spain's Socialist, Authorities, People's Party, Vox, European Union, Socialist, Thomson Locations: Madrid, Spain, MADRID, Catalan, Basque, Catalonia