Four and a half decades after the death of Francisco Franco, the late dictator’s remains are to be exhumed on Thursday morning from the Valley of the Fallen and transferred to a cemetery in Madrid.
The caretaker prime minister of Spain, Pedro Sánchez of the Socialist Party (PSOE), had pledged to eliminate what United Nations rapporteurs have described as an international anomaly: having an autocrat buried in a state-run mausoleum that draws tourists and far-right sympathizers and also contains the remains of nearly 34,000 victims of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939).
But the project ran into 16 months of administrative and legal hurdles as Franco’s family fought the move. In September, the Supreme Court ruled that the exhumation could go ahead.
Operators will lift a tombstone weighing one and a half tons to remove Franco’s remains, which will be taken to El Pardo-Mingorrubio cemetery for reburial next to his wife, Carmen Polo. By 9.30am, vans were showing up at the cemetery filled with wreaths from sympathizers.
While authorities had been planning a helicopter transfer to avoid protests by far-right sympathizers, foggy conditions on Thursday morning could force a change of plans. The cemetery is roughly 50 kilometers from the Valley of the Fallen, located in the mountains northwest of the capital.
Significant security measures have been deployed at the site. The operation has attracted international attention, and will be covered by 500 accredited reporters from 17 countries.
Government authorities, including interim Justice Minister Dolores Delgado, are already at the site. Around 22 of Franco’s relatives are expected to be present at the exhumation. Their cars arrived shortly before 10am.
Speaking on TV3, the caretaker deputy PM, Carmen Calvo, said that the government will keep working on historical memory issues, and noted that Spain is the second country in the world with the largest number of disappeared persons. She called the people who oppose Franco’s exhumation “a nostalgic minority.”
A long time coming
The issue of Franco’s remains has been a thorny one throughout Spain’s democratic history. The PSOE was in power for 22 years before Pedro Sánchez became prime minister through a no-confidence vote in late May 2018, but neither one of his Socialist predecessors – Felipe González, who held office for 14 years, and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who led the government for eight years – was able to find a solution to the fact that the dictator is buried in a giant mausoleum built by republican prisoners alongside 33,800 victims of the Civil War whose relatives do not want their remains to be there.
English version by Susana Urra.