SPAIN’S foreign minister denied Catalan accusations of a coup against the regional government yesterday — insisting the boot was on the other foot.

Catalan parliamentary speaker Carme Forcadell’s had described Madrid’s suspension of the autonomous community’s government as a “de facto coup d’etat with the goal of ousting a democratically elected government.”

Spanish conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s cabinet invoked Article 155 of the constitution on Saturday after Catalan President Carles Puigdemont refused to renounce a possible unilateral declaration of independence.