Francesc Cambó

Francesc Cambó i Batlle (Verges (Catalonia) 2 September, 1876 - 30 April, 1947 Argentina), was a conservative Catalan politician, founder and leader of the autonomist party "Lliga Regionalista". He was minister in several Spanish governments. He also supported a number of artistic and cultural endeavours, specially, the translation of Greek and Latin classical texts to Catalan.

Francesc Cambó was born in Verges, Spain. He founded the "Lliga Regionalista", a regionalist conservative party, in 1901. He was one of the first to propose an autonomous system of government for Catalonia, although, at the time, he only managed to achieve a fusion of the four provincial entities in Catalonia ("Mancomunitat"), with limited power. He was elected a member of the Spanish parliament several times, and twice appointed as minister in a Spanish conservative government.

His party, the "Lliga", was the main representative of the Catalan regionalist or nationalist movement. However, in 1931, Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, a left-wing nationalist party, won the elections and formed the new autonomous Catalan government (Generalitat de Catalunya).

At the start of the Spanish Civil War, he moved abroad. While he didn't initially support the forces of Francisco Franco, he later did, in fear that a Republican victory would lead to a leftist Republic controlled by the Soviet Union.

He died in Argentina in 1947.