A still-healing Spain to move Franco

SPAIN’S supreme court gave the government the go-ahead yesterday to exhume the remains of dictator Francisco Franco and move them from the state mausoleum in which he was buried in 1975.

The ruling could end decades of controversy over the burial place of the man who still divides opinion in Spain, 80 years after the end of the 1936-39 civil war he unleashed and nearly 44 years after his death.

The government of Socialist Pedro Sanchez said it would proceed quickly with plans to move the remains from the Valley of the Fallen mausoleum near Madrid to Mingorrubio El Pardo, a state cemetery on the outskirts of the capital where his wife is buried.

The Socialists have long sought to turn the Valley of the Fallen complex into a memorial to victims of the civil war, in which about 500,000 people were killed. Nearly 34,000 dead from the civil war are buried there, including many who fought for the losing Republican side and whose bodies were transferred to the site during Franco’s dictatorship without the permission of families.

“This is a great victory for Spanish democracy,” acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said. “The determination to repair the suffering of the victims of Franco always guided the action of the government.”

Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo said the exhumation would be carried out as soon as possible. Spain is facing its fourth election in four years in November and moving Franco’s remains has long been a Socialist pledge.

(Reuters)