les mateixes idees i les mateixes ganes que he tingut sempre de transformar la societat per millorar la vida de la gent”4 (09/06/2015)5.

When Colau took office it appeared to be a milestone breach in the form of “yes, but”, which following Ducrot (1986), has a polyphonic character that underscores a controversial dimension: Colau confronts other voices, which from the viewpoint of doxa puts her position in doubt with respect to power. Faced with this situation, the enunciator distinguishes between the present and the past through the creation of a political self, which on one hand distances itself from institutional power (“a ceremony that is formal and that follows protocol”, “a title, a position”) and on the other hand, it presents a coherent passage from the street to the mayor’s office (“The same ideas and the same desire that I have always had”).

“One of the main commitments I made when I first became Mayor of Barcelona was to never lose contact with the street, with the neighbourhoods, with the real specific problems of the residents of my city. However, as soon as I arrived at the mayor’s office, I realized that it was not going to be simple [...]. I decided to formally set up regular meeting spaces with the residents of the neighbourhoods to make sure it is always on the agenda.

I have given it the name, ‘Encounters with the mayor’, which is a regular cycle of informal conversations in different neighbourhoods without a pre-established agenda in order to listen, to respond as much as possible, but also to share reflections on the city and its priorities” (22/ 11/2015).

The enunciator exposes a difficulty in the position of Mayor (“it would not be easy” from the perspective of activist, and thus she presents herself as a person who overcomes adversity. The selection of the syntagma “(Encounters with) the mayor”, instead of “Encounters with Colau / with the neighbours / in the neighbourhoods” or other variants, displays the tense coexistence between the new position and the previous one.

While the name of the position legitimizes the statement, it questions the role of activist that should be highlighted with other linguistic options, such as the “street” lexeme, subjectivème (Kerbrat-Orecchioni, 1997) loaded with positive valuation. Colau “formalizes” the “informal conversations” with neighbours and then incorporates them into the city government, which finally assimilates her role as an activist.

In this effort to maintain her reputation and at the same time demonstrate her own coherence, she repeats a similar phrase in several publications:

“... two days after the electoral victory I went as a volunteer to the annual count that the Fundació Arrels carries out each year of the people who sleep in the streets of Barcelona. Let us never forget who we are and why we are here” (05/28/2015).

“Let us remember who we are and why we are here. [...] We have said it, and we repeat it: if many ordinary people like ourselves have been involved in institutional policy for the first time, we have not done it to take the place of the usual ones, but to change the way of doing politics” (03/07/2016).