A Son of St. Louis Defends Franco

History will condemn those who profane this grandiose temple (…). When anyone attacks Franco, he attacks my family, more than half of Spain, the monarchy and the Church that he protected.

Louis, Duke of Anjou, the eldest of the Capetians, has no intention of giving in to the pressure coming from the Spanish government that hopes to wipe out any trace of Francoism in the Valle de los Caidos. 

Louis de Bourbon—great-grandson of the Caudillo through his grandmother Carmen Franco —is all the more opposed to the government since it refuses to let the remains of the former head of State be transferred to the crypt of Almudena where the family has a vault, for fear the center of Madrid will become a new site in honor of Franco.

The Church of Spain, stricken with a painful case of historical Alzheimer's Disease, has announced—from the Holy See’s advice—that she will comply with the government’s decision.

But the situation is at a standstill because the tombs of Almudena “are private property.” Consequently, “the Church cannot forbid the burial of a deceased person whose family owns one of the vaults,” recalled Benoît Pellistrandi, historian on contemporary Spain, on France Culture. 

The affair could take a dramatic turn, for on February 15, 2019, with complete disregard for the law, the executive branch promulgated an exhumation decree giving the family two weeks to find a new burial place.

The government is literally racing against the clock. After the way they handled the Catalonian issue, the Socialists lost a good amount of support and they can no longer rule alone. It is very likely that a new coalition introduced by the People’s Party will be born in April 2019, and this would put an end, at least for a good long while, to any desire to touch the Generalissimo’s remains.

That is why the Spanish Socialist Party is making the exhumation of Franco’s body a priority so that the Catalonian conflict will not monopolize everyone’s attention during the campaign and also in order to fill up the left-wing political space at the expense of Podemos, a rival party.

Franco’s family has announced that they have filed an ultimate appeal with the Supreme Court in order to forbid any exhumation; just like the statue of the Commander that won out over Don Juan, will the Caudillo’s remains hold out against the determination of Pedro Sanchez?