Franco heirs put ‘plundered’ palace up for sale for £7m

A ROW has blown up in Spain after it emerged that the heirs of Francisco Franco, the country’s former dictator, have put an €8million (£7million) price tag on a palace controversially given to the general by business leaders during the civil war.

Just weeks after the death of Carmen Franco Polo, the dictator’s only daughter, Francisco Franco’s grandchildren have decided to sell the Pazo de Meirás mock castle, despite the fact that the legitimacy of their ownership of the listed building is disputed.

Historians have explained that some of the funds for the 1938 “donation” of the palace in the north-western region of Galicia came from local workers forced to hand over a portion of their income to buy the property.

Outraged political leaders in Galicia are now demanding that the region’s government prevent the sale and strip the Francos of the “plundered” property. “The Meirás palace should return to the people and the family not be paid a euro,” said Luis Villares from En Marea, a Left-wing coalition that leads opposition to the ruling conservative Popular Party in Galicia.

“The Franco family have enjoyed the property for plenty of time and for free. They have no right to make money from the sale of something that was not theirs,” said Mr Villares on Saturday, one day after Mikeli, a real estate company, announced the sale of the 16-acre property in Sada, near A Coruña.

“It’s an insult to this country that the Franco family wants to do business with plunder,” said Ana Pontón, of the Galician Nationalist Bloc. The parties argue that the region’s government is obliged to block the sale as the family had broken rules saying that local authorities must be told when properties of “special cultural interest” are up for sale.