General Franco’s Exhumation Is Growing More and More Likely
On August 24, 2018, in Madrid, the Socialist government signed the decree allowing the exhumation of the former Head of State Francisco Franco (1892-1975). It could take place “at the end of this year.”
The Spanish War has been over for 80 years, and yet the “priority” of the Socialist government at the helm of the country since June 1, 2018, is to remove the body of Francisco Franco from the Holy Cross basilica in the Valle de los Caídos where he is buried. The mausoleum, a monumental complex in the mountains, 30 miles north of Madrid with a 500-foot cross above it, was inaugurated in 1959. It also contains the bodies of some 27,000 Francoist soldiers and about 10,000 Republican opponents, for which reason Franco presented it in his lifetime as a place of “reconciliation”.
The head of the Socialist administration, Pedro Sánchez, is nonetheless determined to unearth the body of the man who served as Head of State from 1939 until 1975. His reason is ideological, and the Spanish government readily admits it: “as a consolidated and European democracy”, Spain does not desire the existence of mausoleum containing “the remains of a former dictator,” declared Ander Gil, president of the Socialist group in the Senate, on August 24. It would be “unimaginable in Germany or Italy”, was his thinly disguised comparison of Franco to Hitler and Mussolini, a grotesque amalgam... The goal is to “put an end to a democratic anomaly”, to a “mausoleum in honor of a dictator”. The government wishes to transform the monument into a place of “remembrance” (sic), similar to the sites commemorating the Holocaust.
But the matter is causing some dispute in Spain. As Le Figaro points out, the tomb of the former leader is covered with flowers all year round. “Some of the Spaniards to not hesitate to come relive the memory of Franco and publicly show their support for him.” “They can take their own out, not ours!” was the chant of some protestors at the site on August 24, quoted by the newspaper El País.
According to the numbers reported by the National Heritage, the public organization that takes care of the mausoleum, the number of visits has increased since the government announced its intentions in June 2018: 38,269 visits in July compared to 23,135 in June. For over two months now, the government, brandishing a resolution adopted by the Parliament in 2017 in favor of the exhumation, has been working to find the appropriate legal form that will allow it to transfer Franco’s remains to his family vault in the cemetery of Pardo, near Madrid. The decree will now need to be voted in by the deputies, and the Socialists can count on the votes of the radical left-wing party Podemos, the Catalan independentists, and the Basque nationalists to win the majority.
If voted in, the removal of his remains – that are more than three feet deep and covered by a one-and-a-half-ton slab – will be scheduled for within a year, as the decree remains valid for one year. But no date will be announced, for the government wishes to act secretly, that is to say, like cowards on the sly, in order to avoid protests and incidents. It is only too true that actions reveal a man: little and base, or great and magnanimous.
Sources: lefigaro / lepoint / ElPaís / afp / FSSPX.News – 8/29/2018