In the week of October 9 and Hispanic Heritage Day (October 12), the president of the Generalitat Valenciana, Carlos Mazón, expressed in an interview on Cadena Ser that "an autonomous community that most resembles Spain, and the most Spanish of all, is the Valencian." A forceful statement that, in the eternal debate about Valencian identity and the feeling of belonging, gives rise to some discussion.
La Vanguardia wanted to analyze this week where very different ways of living and understanding the Valencian identity have been exhibited and when the war of symbols and language seems to have resurfaced more in the institutions than in the streets, what is the feeling of belonging? of the Valencians and their ideal State model. And, also, compare it with the response of the rest of Spain.
To make such a comparison, it is necessary to go back to a 2020 CIS survey where the same question was asked in all autonomies about identity sentiment. At a global level, 15.6% of those surveyed claimed to feel only Spanish, compared to 56.5% who considered themselves as Spanish as citizens of their autonomous community.
In the Valencian case, the percentages were more in favor of that Spanish identity. 23.6% (almost one in four) said they felt only Spanish, a percentage only surpassed by the two Castiles – Castilla-La Mancha (41.7%) and Castilla y León (40.9%) – La Rioja ( 30%) and Madrid (29.4%).
The number of Valencians only identified with the idea of Spain was light years away from the percentages that existed in the so-called historical communities. In Catalonia, this was 10.5%; in the Basque Country, 4.8; in Galicia, 1%; and in Andalusia, 4.3%. This last autonomy was where the highest percentage of those who felt as much from their region (Andalusians) as they did from Spain existed.
It is also notable that the percentage of those who felt more Valencian than Spanish (4% of those surveyed) was below the average for those who felt more part of their community than Spanish. Furthermore, the number of those who felt only Valencian (0.7%) was the fifth lowest among all the autonomies, only below those who felt only Andalusian, Castilian-Leonese, Madrid or Rioja.
However, the preferred option for Valencians – to which 64.3% joined – was to feel as Spanish as they were Valencian. A double identity that was the seventh highest percentage in the ranking of the 17 autonomies.
Regarding the territorial organization of the State, almost the same number of those who felt they were only Spanish advocated for a State with a single central government without autonomy. A percentage of 23.9%, which is six points above the Spanish average and which, together with those who demand that the autonomies have less autonomy (13.5%), shows that centralizing tendencies are not less in the Valencian Community.
However, once again, the majority (42.1%) supported a State with autonomous communities as at present. In fact, in a population that was certainly divided on this issue, the percentage of Valencians who demanded greater autonomy (10.8%) was at the top of the overall range of autonomies, just behind Catalonia, the Basque Country, Galicia, Canary Islands, Navarra and Balearic Islands.
That is to say, although there is a large percentage of Valencians who are decisively committed to centralism and flatly reject any identity other than the Spanish one, there is a majority that feels comfortable with the dual identity (both Spanish and Valencian) and that does not view it as bad. eyes with the current state of the autonomies.
