Spain's central government demanded Sunday that Catalonia's president Carles Puigdemont call off an independence referendum in the region which police have intervened to stop, dismissing the vote as a "farce".

"Puigdemont and his team are solely responsible for all that has happened today and for all that can happen if they do not put an end to this farce," Madrid's representative in Catalonia Enric Millo told a news conference