“Either you speak to me in Spanish or I won't listen to you” have been the words that an official from the Alicante Provincial Council has snapped at a worker from a municipality in the Marina Alta for having expressed herself in Valencian in a telephone conversation. Platform for the Language has exclusively accessed the audios recorded by the employee of the consistory, who assures that it is not the first time that she suffers linguistic discrimination in her communications with the Provincial Council.
The city council employee telephoned the Provincial Office of European Funds to manage some grants. "In the Diputación de Alicante it is not mandatory to speak Valencian", "Either you speak to me in Spanish or we cannot speak, that is clear" and "I am from Madrid and I do not know Valencian" There have been some of the responses from the official of the Diputación to the request of the city council worker to be able to express herself in Valencian: “It is not mandatory that you speak to me in Valencian, unfortunately, but you do have to listen to me, that I can speak to you in Valencian”. The official closed the conversation by warning that "next time we will not be able to assist you."
As explained by the Platform of the Language, it was not the first time that he had communicated by phone with the Diputación de Alicante. On other occasions they had already discriminated against her for speaking in Valencian, but finally they had agreed to the possibility that she could express herself in her mother tongue, according to what the worker told Platform for the Language. This time, but she, tired of the continued discrimination, she decided to record the conversation in two audios, to which the Valencian NGO has had access. You can listen to them through the following link:
The mayor of the town of Marina Alta describes the events as "a situation typical of past times" in a formal complaint that he has raised to the president of the Diputación de Alicante, Carlos Mazón, who is at the same time the president of the Popular Party in the Valencian Community.
In the same writing, the first mayor asks the Presidency of the Diputación to address "immediately the provision of the means that are necessary for the effective performance of the current legality in linguistic matters", citing the Law on the Use and Teaching of Valencian (LUEV), in force since 1983.
With the law in hand, the discriminated employee had the right to be served in Valencian. On the one hand, the Law on the Use and Teaching of Valencian proclaims Valencian as the "language of the Valencian administration" and, therefore, also of the Alicante Provincial Council. On the other hand, the Valencian Civil Service Act is applicable, which establishes that public employees have the right not to be discriminated against on the basis of language. The "respect for fundamental rights" and avoiding "any action that may produce linguistic discrimination" are guiding principles of the conduct of civil servants.
