Spain to exhume Franco’s remains in June

Spain said Friday it will move the remains of late dictator Francisco Franco from an opulent mausoleum to a state-run pantheon, after months of wrangling between the government and his family.

The move, which will take place in June, has long been talked about by sympathisers of the left-leaning government but fiercely resisted by Franco’s heirs and many on the right.

It has revived tensions dating back to Spain’s civil war in the 1930s and the subsequent four decades of Franco’s rule.

“The reburial of Franco’s remains will take place on the morning of June 10,” Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo said.

She said the body would be exhumed then taken to the Mingorrubio-El Pardo state pantheon in a cemetery north of Madrid, where Franco’s wife is buried, with his remains reburied on the same day.

Franco’s tomb currently lies in a huge hillside mausoleum belonging to the Catholic Church in the Valley of the Fallen, west of Madrid.

The imposing basilica has drawn the attention of both tourists and rightwing sympathisers who have rallied there for demonstrations.

Carved into a mountainside and topped by a vast 150-metre (490-feet) cross, the mausoleum is a deeply-divisive symbol of a past that Spain still finds difficult to digest.

It was built by Franco’s regime between 1940 and 1959, using forced labour by political prisoners.

The site also houses the remains of some 37,000 victims from both sides of the civil war, which was triggered by Franco’s rebellion against an elected Republican government.

– ‘Reject extremism’ –

Spain’s previous government led by the conservative Popular Party had resisted efforts to exhume him but Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez revived the plans after taking office last year.

In September, Spanish lawmakers approved a decree authorising the exhumation of Franco’s remains. The government has also gained the Vatican’s approval for finding an alternative burial spot.

Sanchez’s government rejected a proposal by Franco’s family to relocate him to Madrid’s main cathedral, fearing it would become a place of pilgrimage for sympathisers.

The National Francisco Franco Foundation, which defends the memory of the dictator, has said it will appeal against the exhumation at the Supreme Court.

“When you attack Franco, you attack my family, over half of Spain, the monarchy and the Church which protected him,” Franco’s great-grandson Luis Alfonso de Borbon told conservative daily La Razon in October.

The announcement comes just six weeks before Spain holds snap elections on April 28.

Sanchez is trying to prevent the Popular Party from returning to power with the support of newly-emerged far-right party Vox.

The two parties oppose Sanchez’s bid to try to rehabilitate the memory of leftwing victims of the civil war and Franco’s rule.

Last month, Sanchez visited France to pay tribute to the 450,000 Spaniards who sought refuge there at the end of the 1936-39 civil war and during the dictatorship.

He has vowed to defend the values of “tolerance and reject extremism” in times of rising populism.