PROTESTERS MARCH AGAINST FRANCO REBURIAL

Hundreds of protesters in Madrid are urging Spanish government and Catholic church authorities to prevent the remains of 20th-century dictator Francisco Franco from ending up in the city’s cathedral.

Spain’s centre-left government has promised to exhume the general’s body from a glorifying mausoleum he had built. Franco’s heirs have proposed moving the remains to a family crypt below Almudena Cathedral, a move that would thwart the government’s purpose for digging them up.

Protesters on Thursday marched from a square in the Spanish capital to the cathedral crypt. They held signs with photos of Franco and Adolf Hitler and shouted, “Franco, criminal, out of the cathedral.”