Humbler burial spot for body of Spanish dictator
Spain’s supreme court gave the government the go-ahead on Tuesday 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 19361939 civil war he unleashed and nearly 44 years after his death.
The government of Pedro Sanchez, leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party, said it would proceed quickly with plans to move the remains from the Valley of the Fallen mausoleum near Madrid to Mingorrubio El Pardo, which is a state cemetery on the outskirts of the capital where Franco’s 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 defeated 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,” 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 told reporters the exhumation would be carried out as soon as possible, but gave no date.
Spain is facing its fourth election in four years in November, and moving Franco’s remains from the state mausoleum has long been a Socialist pledge.
Right-wing parties accused Sanchez’s government of planning to move Franco for electioneering purposes.
“The Socialist campaign begins: desecrating graves, unearthing hatred,” tweeted Santiago Abascal, leader of the far-right Vox party. Albert Rivera, leader of centre-right Ciudadanos, accused Sanchez of “playing with Franco’s bones to divide us”.
Relatives and friends of victims of Franco, who ruled Spain for almost 40 years, gathered outside the supreme court brandishing pictures of loved ones. They welcomed the ruling, but said that efforts had to continue with the exhuming of bodies from mass graves where many still lie anonymously.
“It’s a small victory but so much more needs to be done,” said 55-year-old Marisa Perez.
Franco’s family had appealed against exhuming his remains and against the government’s plans to move them to the El Pardo cemetery. They had said that if his remains were to be moved, they should go to the Almudena Catholic Cathedral adjacent to the Royal Palace in central Madrid, alongside the body of his daughter.
The court rejected their demands. “The fourth section of the third chamber has unanimously agreed to dismiss in its entirety the appeal filed by the family of Francisco Franco in relation to the exhumation of Francisco Franco agreed on by the government,” the court statement said.
A lawyer for the family of Franco said they would be lodging further appeals, including to European courts
However, a government source said the exhumation could now go ahead.
“This is a violation of personal and family rights ... with a government prohibiting a family from burying one of its members where it wants,” lawyer Felipe Utrera Molina told TVE.
The government said in a report in December 2018 that for security reasons the Almudena cathedral was not suitable as a burial place for Franco.
In an effort to ease the transition to democracy after Franco’s death, Spain passed an amnesty law pardoning political crimes committed during the conflict and the dictatorship in an accord known as the Pact of Forgetting.