Tens of thousands of Catalan separatists demonstrate in Barcelona

Tens of thousands of separatist-minded Catalans have swarmed into Barcelona, giving raucous backing to independence advocates as they launched a campaign to elect a majority of secessionists in regional parliamentary elections this month.

The campaign for the September 27 ballot began on the Catalan National Day holiday that separatists have used for years to rally hundreds of thousands of people in the city to call for the creation of a new European nation.