Some Spanish media have suggested Marcela Topor may have returned to her native Romania with their schoolgirl daughters Magali and Maria after discovering regional Mossos police are no longer keeping guard on their villa on the outskirts of Girona near the French border.
News website Vanitatis quoted a neighbour, who claimed there had been no sign of life at the £600,000 villa overlooking a golf course for the past eight to ten days, as saying: “It’s odd because since Carles Puigdemont has been president, the Mossos have been keeping watch on the neighbourhood 24 hours a day. Now they’re not around.”
It also highlighted growing rumours that actress-turned-journalist Marcela, who keeps a low profile but has made no secret of her support for Catalan independence, may have travelled to Romania because her husband is about to make himself an enemy of the Spanish state by choosing to secede from Spain.
Respected Antena 3 TV news show Espejo Publico has also raised the subject of the 39-year-old’s possible return to Romania – claiming like other media that it had been unable to confirm anything.
Puigdemont, facing the threat of arrest and a lengthy prison sentence if he declares unilateral independence, is understood to be living alone in the Catalan President’s official residence, known in English as the House of Canons and situated in a residential wing of the historic palace called the Palau de la Generalitat which is the seat of the Presidency and the Government of Catalonia.
A key plenary session of the Catalan Parliament due to start this afternoon is expected to determine whether its pro-independence government opts for an immediate unilateral declaration of independence or another fudge like the one earlier this month when Puigdemont suspended independence for talks with the Spanish government.
Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy responded by starting the ball rolling to impose direct rule over Madrid through the controversial Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution after failing to get Puigdemont to answer with a straight yes or no as to whether Catalonia was going it alone.
The possibility of Catalonia breaking away from the rest of Spain has increased in recent hours with Catalan vice-president Oriol Junqueras claiming the Spanish government had given independence supporters no option but to “proclaim a new republic” and Puigdemont taking to Instagram to urge: “Let’s not waste any time with those who have decided to flatten Catalonia’s government.”
Marcela met Puigdemont nearly 20 years ago when she was on tour in her husband’s native province of Girona with a British theatre company.
Besotted Puigdemont travelled to the timber merchant daughter’s home city of Iasi 230 miles north of the capital Bucharest to woo her and get to know her deeply-religious family.
They married 17 years ago with a civil ceremony in the Costa Brava resort of Roses and an Orthodox wedding ceremony in Marcela’s homeland.
Friends describe the gifted linguist, who pals call Mars and speaks English, French, Romanian, Spanish and Catalan like their two schoolgirl daughters Magali and Maria, as “sweet, educated, determined and hard-working.”
She is said to speak English with a slight British accent, having spent time living in London.
She works as the editor of Catalonia Today, an English-language magazine and website based in Girona her husband helped launch in 2004 as a free newspaper before leaving journalism to go into politics.
She also hosts the television programme Catalan Connections, which features interviews in English with resident foreigners in Catalonia.
She was filmed planting a kiss on her husband’s lips when he was invested as Catalan president in January last year.
One local TV journalist joked afterwards that with “such a different and beautiful wife” Puigdemont was always going to make sure he drove the 75 miles back from Barcelona to his home in Girona after work to sleep.