Inés Arrimadas García (; born 3 July 1981) is a Spanish lawyer and politician serving as

Member of the Congress of Deputies The Congress of Deputies ( es, link=no, Congreso de los Diputados, italic=unset) is the lower house of the Cortes Generales, Spain's legislative branch. The Congress meets in the Palace of the Parliament () in Madrid. It has 350 members ele ...

and

Spokesperson A spokesperson, spokesman, or spokeswoman, is someone engaged or elected to speak on behalf of others. Duties and function In the present media-sensitive world, many organizations are increasingly likely to employ professionals who have receiv ...

Citizens Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection". Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...

party in the Congress. She was previously the leader of the regional branch of the party in

Catalonia Catalonia (; ca, Catalunya ; Aranese Occitan: ''Catalonha'' ; es, Cataluña ) is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy. Most of the territory (except the Val d'Aran) lies on the north ...

. In March 2020, she was voted party leader. Arrimadas was born and raised in

Jerez de la Frontera Jerez de la Frontera (), or simply Jerez (), is a Spanish city and municipality in the province of Cádiz in the autonomous community of Andalusia, in southwestern Spain, located midway between the Atlantic Ocean and the Cádiz Mountains. , the ...

. Before entering in politics she worked as a consultant. She became a member of the party in 2011 and she first started being the

spokesperson A spokesperson, spokesman, or spokeswoman, is someone engaged or elected to speak on behalf of others. Duties and function In the present media-sensitive world, many organizations are increasingly likely to employ professionals who have receiv ...

of the youth section. She became an MP of the

Catalan parliament The Parliament of Catalonia ( ca, Parlament de Catalunya, ; es, Parlamento de Cataluña; oc, Parlament de Catalonha) is the unicameral legislature of the autonomous community of Catalonia, Spain. The Parliament is currently made up of 135 mem ...

after the 2012 election. She was the

Leader of the Opposition The Leader of the Opposition is a title traditionally held by the leader of the largest political party not in government, typical in countries utilizing the parliamentary system form of government. The leader of the opposition is typically se ...

in the Catalan Parliament from 2015 to 2019.

Early life and career

Arrimadas is the youngest of five children born to Rufino Arrimadas García and Inés García López, both of whom came from Salmoral in the

Province of Salamanca Salamanca () is a province of western Spain, in the western part of the autonomous community of Castile and León (Castilla y León). It is bordered by the provinces of Zamora, Valladolid, Ávila, and Cáceres, and on the west by Portugal. It has ...

. She moved to

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

in 2008. Arrimadas studied at the Catholic school Nuestra Señora del Pilar in

. She became interested in

as a result of being a fan of

FC Barcelona Futbol Club Barcelona (), commonly referred to as Barcelona and colloquially known as Barça (), is a professional football club based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, that competes in La Liga, the top flight of Spanish football. Founded ...

which led her to take

Catalan Catalan may refer to: Catalonia From, or related to Catalonia: * Catalan language, a Romance language * Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia Places * 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...

lessons from a

classmate while she was in 7th and 8th grade, during which she learnt the club anthem. When she moved to Barcelona, the company she worked for, Daleph, paid her formal Catalan language classes to obtain the C1 level. Arrimadas is fluent in Spanish, Catalan, English, and French. At age 18, Arrimadas began studying

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

Pablo de Olavide University Pablo de Olavide University (''Universidad Pablo de Olavide (UPO)'' in Spanish) is a public university in Seville, Spain. UPO offers both undergraduate and graduate programs in the traditional majors, as well as in biotechnology, environmental s ...

. She also undertook postgraduate studies in international business at IPAG Business School in

Nice Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative c ...

organised through the Erasmus programme. At 24, Arrimadas worked for a year and a half in the petrochemical industry. For six years, she worked as a consultant at D'Aleph in

, having moved to the city in 2008.

Politics

Parliament of Catalonia

In 2010, Arrimadas' coworker invited her to a

public event at Romea theatre, and she accepted the invitation. Afterwards, she started to attend meetings of the political party. In one of those meetings, Albert Rivera went to teach oratory lessons and thought that she had potential. In 2011, Rivera asked her to go to the Youth Commission of the

Parliament of Catalonia The Parliament of Catalonia ( ca, Parlament de Catalunya, ; es, Parlamento de Cataluña; oc, Parlament de Catalonha) is the unicameral legislature of the autonomous community of Catalonia, Spain. The Parliament is currently made up of 135 mem ...

. Rivera also offered her to enter in the party's executive office. Arrimadas was elected as a member of the Parliament of Catalonia in the 2012 Catalan regional election. She became the spokeswoman of

in Catalonia in 2015, substituting Jordi Cañas, who resigned due to being indicted for alleged tax fraud. That same year, she was selected leader of the party for the Catalan elections which were held on 27 September. Citizens in Catalonia gained 17.9% of the votes, increasing their representation from 9 to 25 seats, obtaining the greatest anti-independence single party representation and became the party Leader of the Opposition of the Catalan parliament. In September 2017, Arrimadas reported to police a Catalan female who threatened her with

gang rape Gang rape, also called serial gang rape, group rape, or multiple perpetrator rape in scholarly literature,Ullman, S. E. (2013). 11 Multiple perpetrator rape victimization. Handbook on the Study of Multiple Perpetrator Rape: A Multidisciplinary Re ...

for opposing independence; the woman received a four-month suspended jail sentence. The party under Arrimadas secured the most seats in the 2017 election under a single party, but the pro-independence parties retained a narrow majority of seats in the

. During the campaign for the elections of Catalonia in 2017, a

hoax A hoax is a widely publicized falsehood so fashioned as to invite reflexive, unthinking acceptance by the greatest number of people of the most varied social identities and of the highest possible social pretensions to gull its victims into pu ...

was popularized alleging Arrimadas' father was a

Francoist Francoist Spain ( es, España franquista), or the Francoist dictatorship (), was the period of Spanish history between 1939 and 1975, when Francisco Franco ruled Spain after the Spanish Civil War with the title . After his death in 1975, Spani ...

secret agent. The cousin of his father was the one in a relevant position as a Francoist

governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

. In 2018, she denied that the

President of Catalonia The President of the Government of Catalonia ( ca, President de la Generalitat de Catalunya, ) is one of the bodies that the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia stipulates as part of the Generalitat de Catalunya, others being the Parliament, the gov ...

Lluís Companys was executed by the Spanish State, stating that Companys was executed by a Francoist, fascist regime, not by the Spanish state.

Congress of Deputies

In 2019, Prime Minister

Pedro Sánchez Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón (; born 29 February 1972) is a Spanish politician who has been Prime Minister of Spain since June 2018. He has also been Secretary-General of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) since June 2017, having pr ...

dissolved the

Cortes Generales The Cortes Generales (; en, Spanish Parliament, lit=General Courts) are the bicameral legislative chambers of Spain, consisting of the Congress of Deputies (the lower house), and the Senate (the upper house). The Congress of Deputies meets ...

in response to a budget defeat. In response to the snap election, Arrimadas announced she would run for a seat in the Cortes Generales with senator Lorena Roldán as party spokesperson in the Catalan Parliament and Carlos Carrizosa as leader. In the April 2019 election, Citizens list obtained 12.0% of the vote and 4 seats out of 32, one of which went to Arrimadas. In the November 2019 election, the party's vote share fell to 6.0% and 2 seats, but Arrimadas nevertheless managed to retain hers and remained a member of the Chamber of Deputies. On 8 March 2020, Arrimadas was voted leader of Citizens, obtaining 76.9% of the vote in a three-way race.

Personal life

On 30 July 2016, Arrimadas married Xavier Cima, a former Catalan MP and municipal councillor in

Ripoll Ripoll () is the capital of the ''comarca'' of Ripollès, in the province of Girona, Catalonia, Spain. It is located on confluence of the Ter River and its tributary Freser, next to the Pyrenees near the French border. The population was 11,05 ...

for the pro-independence

Democratic Convergence of Catalonia The Democratic Convergence of Catalonia ( ca, Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya; , CDC), frequently shortened as Convergence ( ca, Convergència; ) was a Catalan nationalist, liberal political party in Catalonia (Spain), currently still exist ...

, at an estate in

. Cima then left politics to work for Kreab in Madrid. Their son Álex was born in May 2020. In a September 2021 post on Instagram, Arrimadas announced that she was pregnant with her second child. Their second son Marc was born in March 2022.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Arrimadas, Ines 1981 births Citizens (Spanish political party) politicians Living people Members of the 10th Parliament of Catalonia Members of the 11th Parliament of Catalonia 21st-century Spanish women politicians Members of the 12th Parliament of Catalonia Members of the 13th Congress of Deputies (Spain) Members of the 14th Congress of Deputies (Spain) People from Jerez de la Frontera Women members of the Congress of Deputies (Spain) Women members of the Parliament of Catalonia Women opposition leaders