Deposed Catalan president Carles Puigdemont "is and will remain" the president of the regional government, his deputy said Sunday, and rejected what he called a "coup d'etat" by Madrid.

"The president of the country is and will remain Carles Puigdemont," Oriol Junqueras wrote in Catalan newspaper El Punt Avui after the central government seized the regional executive's powers following a vote by lawmakers to declare independence from Spain.

Junqueras signed the article "Vice President of the government of Catalonia."

source: AFP