Barcelona Logs 284 Catalan Language Discrimination Cases in 2025

Using Catalan was the second most common reason people reported discrimination in Barcelona in 2025, according to the city’s Observatori de les Discriminacions a Barcelona (Barcelona Discrimination Observatory). It logged 284 cases tied to the language, a rise of nearly 50% that moved Catalan up from fifth place. Only racism and xenophobia, with 348 cases, ranked higher.

The report counted well over a thousand discrimination situations in the city in 2025, nearly fifteen percent more than the year before. Racism and xenophobia topped the list for the eighth year running, El Nacional reported.

What people reported about Catalan

Most language complaints came from everyday errands done in Catalan: ordering at a bar or restaurant, dealing with a medical appointment or renewing documents. People said they were told to switch to Spanish before being served, found no paperwork available in Catalan, or were refused service outright. Private businesses were the main source of these cases, though some involved public offices and security forces. In the 2024 report, language accounted for 192 cases, Ara reported.

Jaume Muñoz, who heads the Ajuntament’s (city council’s) rights and non-discrimination department, described language discrimination as addressing someone in Catalan and getting no answer because of the language used. El Nacional reported last week that one complaint led to the temporary suspension of a Guàrdia Urbana (Barcelona city police) officer.

The city says it has added language clauses to public contracts, run an information campaign at 850 shops and restaurants in Gràcia and inspected businesses on La Rambla. The report also says language requirements are being worked into hiring at TMB (Barcelona’s bus and metro operator). The Catalan language group Plataforma per la Llengua said in a statement that the figures show “a sustained and especially worrying trend” and called for stronger reporting tools and tougher obligations on companies and public bodies.

Racism, health care and LGTBI cases

Of the 348 racism and xenophobia cases, 113 involved people from Latin America and 92 were anti-Muslim racism. Berta Andrés, coordinator of the Oficina per la No Discriminació (the city’s anti-discrimination office), said public administration was the main perpetrator in racism cases and that about a third took place in public spaces such as streets, parks and squares. Hate speech and verbal abuse were the most common forms, along with a significant number of physical attacks.

According to Ara, public administration was for the first time the main discriminating agent overall, driven mostly by complaints in health care, which ranked third with 268 cases. In the 2024 report it was third. Muñoz said police and private security cases were mostly about racism, while companies and private entities were mostly about language, and LGTBI-phobia cases mostly involved private individuals.

LGTBI-phobia reached a record 228 cases, up from 112 in 2019, with most of the increase in homophobia and transphobia.

What the numbers mean for residents

Muñoz said the jump from 265 cases in 2018 to a thousand more than that last year does not mean an exponential rise in discrimination in the city. In his view, better detection tools and work against underreporting explain part of it. He added that most people who report hold a DNI or NIE (Spanish identity documents), while many more undocumented people, refugees and asylum seekers face discrimination without reporting it. Maria Eugènia Gay, the city’s second deputy mayor, said many more situations behind the figures never get reported.

The city also pointed to its 2024 neighbourhood survey of more than three thousand people. In it, nearly a third of Barcelona residents said they had experienced discrimination, and the share rose to more than half among people who identify as racialized, among Black residents and among LGTBI people. The council described a pattern of multiple discrimination in which gender makes things worse, and Muñoz said most people discriminated against are women.

Hate speech in schools

This year’s report focuses on hate speech among young people. Victim support groups told the observatory that schools are increasingly worried about discriminatory attitudes and the defence of far-right ideas among both students and teachers. The report links this to unchecked online information, which it says spreads misinformation and deepens polarization.

Sources: go.eln.cat, El Nacional, Ara