Spain's new Socialist government is determined to remove
the remains of Francisco Franco from a vast mausoleum
near Madrid and turn it into a place of "reconciliation" for a
country still coming to terms with the dictator's legacy.
"There already exists an agreement in parliament, what we
are going to do as a government is look for the way to apply
it," Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo told reporters.
She was referring to a non-binding motion approved last
year by 198 of the 350 lawmakers in Spain's parliament
calling for Franco's remains to be removed from the
massive Valley of the Fallen mausoleum some 50 kilometres
(30 miles) northwest of Madrid.
But the motion was ignored by the former conservative
government of Mariano Rajoy.
Now the goal is to convert the site into a "place of
reconciliation, of memory, for all Spaniards, and not of
apology for the dictatorship," said Socialist party spokesman
Oscar Puente.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who toppled Rajoy in a no-
confidence vote on June 1 after a corruption scandal, has
since made the question of what do with Franco's remains
a priority of his minority government.
Franco ruled Spain with an iron fist from the end of the
country's 1936-39 civil war until his death in 1975, when he
was buried inside a basilica drilled into the side of a
mountain at the Valley of the Fallen, one of Europe's largest
mass graves.
Franco governed Spain with an
the remains of Francisco Franco from a vast mausoleum
near Madrid and turn it into a place of "reconciliation" for a
country still coming to terms with the dictator's legacy.
"There already exists an agreement in parliament, what we
are going to do as a government is look for the way to apply
it," Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo told reporters.
She was referring to a non-binding motion approved last
year by 198 of the 350 lawmakers in Spain's parliament
calling for Franco's remains to be removed from the
massive Valley of the Fallen mausoleum some 50 kilometres
(30 miles) northwest of Madrid.
But the motion was ignored by the former conservative
government of Mariano Rajoy.
Now the goal is to convert the site into a "place of
reconciliation, of memory, for all Spaniards, and not of
apology for the dictatorship," said Socialist party spokesman
Oscar Puente.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who toppled Rajoy in a no-
confidence vote on June 1 after a corruption scandal, has
since made the question of what do with Franco's remains
a priority of his minority government.
Franco ruled Spain with an iron fist from the end of the
country's 1936-39 civil war until his death in 1975, when he
was buried inside a basilica drilled into the side of a
mountain at the Valley of the Fallen, one of Europe's largest
mass graves.
Franco governed Spain with an
iron fist from the end of the
country's 1936-39 civil war until
his death in 1975, when he was
buried inside a basilica drilled
into the side of a mountain at
the Valley of the Fallen
Built by Franco's regime between 1941 and 1959 -- in part by
the forced labour of political prisoners -- in the granite
mountains of the Sierra de Guadarrama, the monument
holds the remains of more than 30,000 dead from both
sides of the civil war, which was triggered by Franco's
rebellion against an elected Republican government.
Franco, whose Nationalist forces defeated the Republicans
in the war, dedicated the site to "all the fallen" of the
conflict in an attempt at reconciliation, but only two graves
are marked -- those of Franco and Jose Antonio Primo de
Rivera, the founder of the far-right Falangist party which
supported Franco.
- 'Uncomfortable past' -
The mausoleum features a 150-metre-tall (500-feet) stone
cross and other symbols of Franco's National-Catholic
ideology, and is seen by many as a relic of the dictatorship.
Fresh flowers can still be found on top of Franco's and
Rivera's tombs.
Many on the left are repulsed by its existence, comparing it
to a monument glorifying Hitler.
Others, often on the right, insist the Valley of the Fallen is an
innocuous piece of history whose critics have twisted its
true meaning.
The Socialists included the removal of Franco and Rivera's
remains in a proposed law they presented in December 2017
when they were in opposition.
The proposed law also called for the creation of a truth
commission and for politically motivated court rulings taken
during Franco's dictatorship to be annulled.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has
made the question of what do with
Franco's remains a priority of his
minority government
Sanchez unveiled it at a highly symbolic spot near the
eastern port of Valencia where more than 2,000 Republican
supporters are believed to have been shot dead by Franco's
forces.
"If we ignored an uncomfortable past, we can't build a
comfortable future," he said at the time.
- 'Genocidal dictator' -
Rajoy's Popular Party, a successor to the Popular Alliance
founded in 1976 by former Franco ministers, accuses the
Socialists of needlessly raking over the past.
"The Socialist party has accustomed us to leading these
cultural battles" which "do nothing to help coexistence," said
Andrea Levy, a top Popular Part official.
Centrist party Ciudadanos said it was open to moving
Franco's remains, while anti-establishment party Podemos,
which supported the no-confidence motion that brought the
Socialists to power, hailed the initiative.
Top Podemos official Pablo Echinique said it was wrong for
the remains of a "genocidal dictator" to rest "in a giant
mausoleum while there are tens of thousands of dead in
mass graves".
He was referring to the estimated 114,000 bodies of the
victims of Franco's forces during the civil war and the first
years of his rule that are still in unmarked graves across
Spain.
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