"It has been an unforgettable experience"

The former leader of Ciudadanos Toni Cantó leaves the Spanish Office a year and two months after the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, created this area expressly to place the politician and whose objective was to promote Madrid "as a capital of Spanish in the world”. The objective, as Cantó has communicated through his official Twitter account, is to start a “new professional project”. In the message he thanked Ayuso for having been able to "be part of her government": "It has been an unforgettable experience that I will remember with pride," she added.

Ayuso creates a "Spanish Office" and places Toni Cantó in charge

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Cantó was coordinator of Ciudadanos in València and in March 2021 he abandoned all his positions in the party to encourage what was his political group to "go with the PP to elections" in the elections of the Community of Madrid that same year. A month later, the Constitutional Court definitively expelled the Valencian from the PP lists for the elections of May 4, 2021 for not meeting the requirements demanded by law, since Cantó was not registered in the community. The electoral result gave Ayuso a large majority and, after repeating as head of the Presidency of the Community of Madrid, he approved a new structure, thus creating the area directorate of the Spanish Office.

I have informed the President @IdiazAyuso I intend to start a new professional project soon.

I want to thank her and her entire team for allowing me to be part of her government.

It has been an unforgettable experience that I will remember with pride.

– Toni Cantó (@ Tonicanto1) September 8, 2022

Cantó's salary as area director has so far hovered around 75,000 euros gross per year. Despite the fact that the office aimed to promote Spanish in the world and thus attract tourism, Cantó lacked any training in this regard when he took office. The former public leader has been a television actor and for a few years he has been immersed in politics, militating in various political parties, including UPyD and Ciudadanos, of which he became a deputy in Congress.

Cantó arrived at this new address after only a year before defending as a deputy of the Valencian Community a regional administration with "less useless structures, fewer beach bars and plugged in and fewer politicians". “We are going to eliminate them and that money is going to go to health and education”said among other statements about the so-called "chiringuitos".