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Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has said regional elections next month in Catalonia will help end "separatist havoc" in the north-eastern region.
He addressed a campaign event on his first visit there since imposing direct rule on the region a fortnight ago.
Defending his decision in Barcelona, he said he had "exhausted all roads" after the Catalan government's unilateral declaration of independence last month.
Several key Catalan leaders are currently being detained over the move.
Some 750,000 people protested in Barcelona on Saturday against the arrests, local police said.
Protesters shine their mobile phone torches at a rally in Barcelona on 11 November
The crisis was sparked by a disputed referendum held in Catalonia in October, which had been barred by the Spanish courts.
Catalan officials said the independence campaign won 92% of the vote, from a turnout of 43%. Many of those who were against independence did not cast votes, refusing to recognise the legitimacy of the referendum.
The Spanish government responded to the referendum by dissolving the Catalan parliament, imposing direct rule, and calling a snap regional election on 21 December.
Speaking at a campaign event in Barcelona for his Popular Party (PP) on Sunday, Mr Rajoy called on the participation of the "silent majority" to "convert their voice into a vote".
"We must recover Catalonia from the havoc of separatism," he added.
Since the crackdown by Madrid, Catalonia's sacked President Carles Puigdemont has gone into self-imposed exile in Belgium, and his top allies have been prosecuted.
A lawyer whose firm represents two of his imprisoned former ministers told BBC News that their situation had been made worse by Mr Puigdemont's decision to flee.
'We are a republic!'
Protesters in Barcelona on Saturday shone phone torches in unison at sunset, as calls were made to free eight Catalan ministers and two grassroots campaign leaders.
They marched behind a banner declaring "We are a republic", and carried placards that said the 10 Catalan detainees were political prisoners.
The sacked former ministers are being investigated for alleged rebellion and sedition, while the two activists were arrested over a mass protest before the referendum.
There were performances and speeches to the crowd. Protesters chanted "Puigdemont for president" and a cellist played a traditional Christmas carol, The Song of the Birds, which is associated with Catalans driven into political exile.
The left-wing ERC party, a key ally of Mr Puigdemont, has announced that some of the prisoners, including party leader Oriol Junqueras, as well as some of the sacked ministers who also went to Belgium, will stand on its electoral list.
However, the ERC has rejected a call from Mr Puigdemont to fight the election as part of a single pro-independence bloc with other parties - as they did in 2015.
A recent opinion poll in Catalan newspaper La Vanguardia suggests that the ERC will win the biggest share of the vote in December.
Mr Rajoy's PP won just 8.5% of the vote in the last regional elections two years ago.
Mr Rajoy was mocked as the Devil on this recent placard in Barcelona
In another development, the mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, condemned Catalonia's pro-independence leaders.
Ms Colau, who was elected in 2015 on an anti-capitalist platform and whose party is standing in the regional parliamentary election for the first time, said leaders of the independence movement had "tricked the population for their own interests".
"They've provoked tensions and carried out a unilateral independence declaration which the majority do not want," she told a meeting of her Catalonia in Common party.
However, her party has also voted to break a pact with the Socialist party in Barcelona in protest at its support for the national government's decision to invoke Article 155 of the constitution, imposing direct rule on Catalonia.
(BBC)
