The Spanish government on Friday approved plans to dig up the remains of former dictator Francisco Franco, which have lain in the Valley of the Fallen mausoleum near Madrid since his death in 1975.
Legal amendments to Spain’s Historical Memory Law, dating from 2007, grant the government the power to exhume Franco’s body. It’s a change aimed at thwarting legal efforts by Franco’s descendants and supporters to block the exhumation in the courts. The move is in line with the 2011 recommendations of a national commission endorsed by the United Nations, and a decision by parliament in 2017.
The decree still needs to be validated by Congress. The family has 15 days to lodge an appeal, El País reported.
His grandson, Francisco Franco Martínez Bordiú, said, according to the Guardian: “The government has taken this opportunistic, cowardly and vengeful decision. This is just a trick to win votes for the left.”
“Spain is a consolidated and mature democracy that can’t have the dictator in a place of honor,” Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo told POLITICO Brussels Playbook. “The Valley of the Fallen will become a place of respect for the victims.”
“All along the procedure, we’ll remain open for the family to take charge of him, so he’ll go wherever the family wants. If they don’t, we’ll find a worthy place, respectful of his beliefs, which is what we’re legally obliged to do,” she said.
Franco launched a military coup against the democratic government of Spain in 1936, triggered a civil war and ruled the country until 1975. He is buried together with some 34,000 victims of war and repression at the Valley of the Fallen.
“A country that looks to its future needs to be at peace with its past,” Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez told parliament in June. “Wounds have remained open for many years, too many, and it’s time to heal them. Our democracy will have symbols that unite citizens, not ones that separate them.”