The remains of former military dictator General Francisco Franco will be dug up from a controversial memorial, after a decree was passed by Spain‘s socialist government.

Franco, who ruled for nearly 40 years, was buried at the Valley of the Fallen monument to the victims of the Spanish Civil War following his death in 1975.

Proposals to remove his body from the site – which is marked by a 152m cross on a mountainside near Madrid – have been discussed for years but faced opposition from his descendants and supporters.

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The decree, which amends Spain’s Historical Memory Law of 2007 to grant the government power to dig up Franco’s body, was passed during a cabinet meeting on Friday.

“Having Franco’s tomb there [at the Valley of the Fallen complex] shows a lack of respect ... for the victims buried there,” deputy prime minister Carmen Calvo said.

“Only the mortal remains of people who died as a result of the Spanish Civil War will lie in the Valley of the Fallen.”

The decree still needs to be approved by a parliament in which prime minister Pedro Sanchez holds only a quarter of the seats, but the government says it is certain the amendments will be endorsed.

Plans to turn the mausoleum into “a place of commemoration, remembrance and homage to the victims of the war” should be finished by the end of the year, Ms Calvo said.

The government also aims to establish a “truth commission” and identify the 114,000 victims of the 1936-39 civil war and Franco’s dictatorship.

Some 34,000 people from both sides are buried at the Valley of the Fallen complex, most of them unidentified.

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Last year the conservative People’s Party, then leaders of the ruling coalition, argued removing Franco’s remains would ”stress and divide the nation“.

Franco’s descendants also refused to move his body to a family vault in Galicia, and planned a legal challenge to any exhumation.

His descendants will now have 15 days to say where they would like the remains to be placed after exhumation. If they do not reply, the government will choose a “dignified place”, Ms Calvo said.

Francisco Martinez-Bordiu, a grandson of Franco, described the exhumation plans as “barbaric”, and told Spanish TV the dictator’s descendants would assess legal options for halting the process.

Shape Created with Sketch. Briton who fought against Franco's fascists dies, aged 94 Show all 2 left Created with Sketch. right Created with Sketch. Shape Created with Sketch. Briton who fought against Franco's fascists dies, aged 94 1/2 11.getty.jpg Men of the British Battalion of the XV International Brigade in Spain in the Civil War, 1937 Getty Images 2/2 12.jpg 1/2 11.getty.jpg Men of the British Battalion of the XV International Brigade in Spain in the Civil War, 1937 Getty Images 2/2 12.jpg

Political events at the Valley of the Fallen were banned under the 2007 Memory Law, which formally condemned the dictatorship under Franco.

The monument, ordered by Franco, took nearly 20 years to complete, and was officially opened in 1959.</s>The Spanish government on Friday approved plans to dig up the remains of former dictator Francisco Franco, which have lain in the Valley of the Fallen mausoleum near Madrid since his death in 1975.

Legal amendments to Spain’s Historical Memory Law, dating from 2007, grant the government the power to exhume Franco’s body. It’s a change aimed at thwarting legal efforts by Franco’s descendants and supporters to block the exhumation in the courts. The move is in line with the 2011 recommendations of a national commission endorsed by the United Nations, and a decision by parliament in 2017.

The decree still needs to be validated by Congress. The family has 15 days to lodge an appeal, El País reported.

His grandson, Francisco Franco Martínez Bordiú, said, according to the Guardian: “The government has taken this opportunistic, cowardly and vengeful decision. This is just a trick to win votes for the left.”

“Spain is a consolidated and mature democracy that can’t have the dictator in a place of honor,” Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo told POLITICO Brussels Playbook. “The Valley of the Fallen will become a place of respect for the victims.”

“All along the procedure, we’ll remain open for the family to take charge of him, so he’ll go wherever the family wants. If they don’t, we’ll find a worthy place, respectful of his beliefs, which is what we’re legally obliged to do,” she said.

Franco launched a military coup against the democratic government of Spain in 1936, triggered a civil war and ruled the country until 1975. He is buried together with some 34,000 victims of war and repression at the Valley of the Fallen.

“A country that looks to its future needs to be at peace with its past,” Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez told parliament in June. “Wounds have remained open for many years, too many, and it’s time to heal them. Our democracy will have symbols that unite citizens, not ones that separate them.”

Read this next: Trump accuses social media giants of ‘silencing millions of people’</s>Spain's Socialist government passed a decree on Friday allowing the exhumation of the remains of Francisco Franco from his vast mausoleum, a decision that divides Spaniards and has opened old wounds.

"We are celebrating 40 years of a democratic Spain, of a stable and mature constitutional order... and this is not compatible with a public tomb where we continue to glorify Franco," Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo told a news conference following a cabinet meeting that approved the decree.

The exhumation, which is fiercely opposed by the late dictator's descendants, could take place at the end of the year, she said, declaring: "We can't lose a single minute."

The decree will still have to be approved in parliament.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who came to power in June after he ousted his conservative predecessor in a confidence vote, has made removing Franco's remains from the monument in the Valle de los Caidos (Valley of the Fallen) near Madrid one of his priorities.

"As an established and European democracy, Spain cannot allow for symbols that divide Spaniards," Sanchez told public broadcaster TVE shortly after he came to power, saying such a mausoleum would be "unthinkable" in other European nations that had fascist dictatorships like Italy and Germany.

Sanchez's Socialists say the goal is to convert the site into a place of "reconciliation" and memory for all Spaniards.

General Franco, who ruled Spain with an iron fist from the end of the 1936-39 civil war until his death in 1975, is buried in an imposing basilica carved into a mountain-face just 50 kilometres (30 miles) outside of Madrid with a 150-metre (500-feet) cross towering over it.

Built by Franco's regime between 1940 and 1959 -- in part by the forced labour of some 20,000 political prisoners -- the monument holds the remains of around 37,000 dead from both sides of the civil war, which was triggered by Franco's rebellion against an elected Republican government.

It was long used as a place to pay tribute to Franco on the anniversary of his death, but that was stopped by a 2007 law.

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 critics say it is unacceptable to give such ostentatious recognition to a brutal dictator.

And they say the families of the Republicans were never told about their transfer to the valley.

Critics compare the situation with neighbouring Portugal, where late dictator Antonio de Oliveira Salazar is buried in a municipal cemetery, or Italy, where former fascist leader Benito Mussolini lies in a family crypt.

Visitor numbers to the site have soared since the government announced its plans. Spain's national heritage agency that runs the monument said over 38,000 people visited in July compared to over 23,000 in June.

Sanchez's minority government argued that Franco's exhumation was backed by a non-binding motion that was approved last year in parliament but ignored by the former conservative government.

The decree is now expected to pass in parliament as it is supported by far-left party Podemos as well as Catalan separatist parties and a Basque nationalist party.

But it is fiercely opposed by Franco's descendants who are refusing to take his remains to the family sepulchral vault, and the main opposition conservative Popular Party (PP) which has warned it will challenge the decree in court.

"It is more important (to Sanchez) to revive the ghosts of the past than to try to seduce people with the future. He is more interested in opening the wounds of our worst past than in concentrating on our better present," new PP leader Pablo Casado told reporters Thursday.

The deputy prime minister said that if Franco's family refuses to transfer the late dictator's remains to the family vault, the government will pick a spot to bury him.

Aside from removing Franco's remains, the government announced last month that it wanted to establish a truth commission on wrongdoings during the civil war and dictatorship, and annul politically motivated Franco-era court decisions.</s>Spain's center-left government approved Friday legal amendments ensuring that the remains of former dictator Gen. Francisco Franco will be dug up and removed from a controversial national mausoleum honoring its civil war dead.

The minority Socialist government is certain that parliament will endorse the amendments, probably in a debate next month, deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo told a news conference.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who came to power in June after he ousted his conservative predecessor in a confidence vote, has made removing the late dictator from the divisive monument one of his priorities.

"As an established and European democracy, Spain cannot allow for symbols that divide Spaniards," Sanchez told public broadcaster TVE shortly after he came to power, adding such a mausoleum would be "unthinkable" in other European nations that had fascist dictatorships like Italy and Germany.

The amendments to Spain's Historical Memory Law of 2007 grant the government power to exhume Franco's body. That change aims to thwart legal efforts by Franco's descendants and supporters to block the exhumation in the courts.

Removing Franco's remains from the Valley of the Fallen, a mausoleum he ordered built 50 kilometers (30 miles) northwest of Madrid, would be a momentous event in Spain which still bears social and political scars from the 1936-39 civil war.

The vast Valley of the Fallen (El Valle de los Caidos) complex is most conspicuous public legacy of Franco's rule. It was built by Franco, also using Republican captives as forced labor in the process, as a tribute to those killed in the 1936-39 civil war when he deposed Spain's democratic government in what he called his "glorious crusade."

Some 34,000 people from both sides of the fighting are buried at the site, most of them never identified.

 

 

 

 "Having Franco's tomb (at the complex) shows a lack of respect ... for the victims buried there," Calvo said. She noted that a visiting United Nations delegation said four years ago that "democracy is incompatible with a tomb which honors the memory of Franco."

The Memory Law, which outlawed public events supporting the Franco regime, fell short of addressing the broad demands of civil war survivors and victims' relatives for exhumations and reparations.

Franco's descendants will be consulted and will have 15 days to say where they would like the remains to be placed after exhumation. If they do not reply, the government will choose a "dignified place," Calvo said after the government's weekly Cabinet meeting.

Francisco Martinez-Bordiu, a grandson of Franco, described the exhumation plans as "barbaric," telling Antena 3 in an interview Friday that descendants would assess their legal options for halting it.

An exhumation of Franco's embalmed body — possibly as early as October — would cement the government's reformist and liberal credentials after taking power last June.

Removing Franco from the mausoleum, which is owned and operated by the cultural heritage agency, a public-funded body, has long been discussed in Spain.

Calvo said the government is fast-tracking the exhumation because it wants to "end a state of affairs which cannot go on any longer."

At next Friday's Cabinet meeting, the detailed administrative procedures for the exhumation will be set out, she said.

The legislative process to turn the monument into "a place of commemoration, remembrance and homage to the victims of the war" should be finished by the end of the year, Calvo added.

"Only the mortal remains of people who died as a result of the Spanish Civil War will lie in the Valley of the Fallen."

The Valley of the Fallen complex includes a mausoleum and basilica in a neoclassic style and is a popular pilgrimage site for people who are nostalgic for the dictatorship. It has a 150-meter (500-foot)-tall cross that can be seen from many kilometers away.

Franco, who died in 1975, is in a tomb in the basilica's central nave beneath a 1.5-metric ton tombstone.

 

 

 

 It looms over a giant esplanade and a basilica watched over by Benedictine monks where the late dictator rests, fresh flowers laid on his tomb every day.

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 critics say it is unacceptable to give such ostentatious recognition to a brutal dictator. During his rule, from the end of the civil war in 1939 to his death in 1975, tens of thousands were killed or imprisoned in a campaign to wipe out dissent.

And they say the families of the Republicans were never told about their transfer to the valley.

Visitor numbers to the site have soared since the government announced its plans. Spain's national heritage agency that runs the monument said over 38,000 people visited in July compared to over 23,000 in June.

Sanchez's minority government argued that Franco's exhumation was backed by a non-binding motion that was approved last year in parliament but ignored by the former conservative government.

The decree is now expected to pass in parliament as it is supported by far-left party Podemos as well as Catalan separatist parties and a Basque nationalist party.

But it is fiercely opposed by Franco's descendants who are refusing to take his remains to the family sepulchral vault in Galicia in northwestern Spain, and the main opposition conservative Popular Party (PP) which has warned it will challenge the decree in court.

"It is more important (to Sanchez) to revive the ghosts of the past than to try to seduce people with the future. He is more interested in opening the wounds of our worst past than in concentrating on our better present," new PP leader Pablo Casado told reporters on Thursday.

Aside from removing Franco's remains, the government announced last month that it wanted to establish a truth commission on wrongdoings during the civil war and dictatorship, and annul politically motivated Franco-era court decisions.

Spain is not the only country to have faced difficulties dealing with the remains of controversial leaders.

Here are some examples:

On his death in 1953, Stalin was buried in the Moscow mausoleum of his predecessor, Vladimir Lenin.

But eight years later, a process of "de-Stalinization" was launched to dismantle the dictator's cult of personality and his remains were quietly transferred to a more modest resting place near the Kremlin.

Stalin's resting place is still a site of pilgrimage for some diehard communists.

The dictator and his wife Elena were arrested after a popular anti-communist uprising in 1989, summarily judged and executed by firing squad.

Amid fears their graves might be desecrated, they were surreptitiously buried at night under crosses bearing false names.

The bodies were exhumed in 2010 to dispel doubts about the identity and reburied at Ghencea cemetery in Bucharest, this time together.

Rising nostalgia for the communist era prompted some Romanians to visit the red marble grave in January 2018 to mark the 100th anniversary of Ceausescu's birth.

Killed during the Libyan revolution in October 2011, the dictator for nearly 42 years was buried in a secret location in the desert after a religious ceremony.

The military said it wanted to avoid his grave becoming a rallying point for supporters.

One official said the aim was to follow the example of what happened to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, whose body disappeared after his suicide as Soviet troops stormed Berlin in 1945.

Having ruled since 1979, Saddam was arrested by U.S. forces in 2003 as he hid down a hole north of Baghdad.

After his execution in 2006 for crimes against humanity, his body was buried in a mausoleum he had built for himself in the village in which he was born.

The tomb became a place of remembrance for his family and supporters but around 2014, it was destroyed in mysterious circumstances.

Some suggested an attack by the Iraqi air force was responsible, while others said it had been blown up with dynamite.

The whereabouts of the body, including whether it remains in the ruins, is a subject of much speculation.

The remains of Hitler's former right-hand man, who died in prison in 1987, were exhumed in secret in 2011 in Bavaria and his grave destroyed to get rid of the biggest neo-Nazi pilgrimage site in Germany.

His remains were placed in another coffin which was incinerated and his ashes scattered at sea.

The authoritarian communist ruler of Albania for 40 years was buried as a national hero in the Martyrs' Cemetery after his death in 1985.

But after the fall of communism, his remains were exhumed in 1992 and transferred to an ordinary public cemetery in a suburb of the capital Tirana.

A pyramid-shaped complex in his honor served for a while as a cultural center but is today in ruins.</s>The Spanish government's center-left party, the Spanish Socialist Worker's Party (PSOE), is set to pass amendments to the Law of Historical Memory [52/2007] in an upcoming debate next month, deputy prime minister Carmen Calvo said at a press conference at the Palace of the Moncloa on Friday.

"Having Franco's tomb (at the complex) shows a lack of respect […] for the victims buried there," Calvo stated, citing a visiting United Nations delegations remarks that "democracy is incompatible with a tomb which honors the memory of Franco."

Calvo noted that the Spanish government will contact Franco's descendants and give them fifteen days to nominate a place to transfer the remains after exhumation. In the absence of a response, the government will choose what it calls a "dignified place", she said at a weekly Cabinet meeting.

Calvo stated that the government wishes to speed up the exhumation to "end a state of affairs which cannot go on any longer." The Law of Historical Memory was approved in 2007 and numerous consultations, including expert recommendations in 2011 and a mandate issued to the Congress of Deputies in 2017.

The motion had been introduced to the lower house and deputies voted 198-1 in favor in May 2017, El Pais reported. 140 deputies from the Conservative Popular Party (PP) abstained.

"There's not a single reason that Spanish democracy does not feel worthy of this exhumation," Calvo asserted.

Others have seconded her stance, with Spanish president Pedro Sánchez making his own statement.

"A country looking to the future must be at peace with its past," he said on Twitter. "We are going to exhume the remains of Franco with all the guarantees and listen to other parliamentary groups. The government is acting serenely to restore dignity to the victims of Francoism and to the democracy."

The law was first introduced by the PSOE and grants the Spanish government powers to exhume Franco's body, but the new provisions will limit the ability of his descendants to challenge the transfer in courts.

"[The] exhumation will be subjected to administrative authorization from competent authorities, in which they should ponder the existence of opposition from any of the direct descendants of the people that must be removed," the law originally stated.

Spanish citizen on both sides of the argument have taken to Twitter, offering a mixed flurry of comments and opinions.

User Manuel Llamas scoffed at the idea. "[They are] deluded who think that, once they unearth Franco (if they get it), that the left will forget the Civil war. Quite the opposite," he tweeted.

"After the dictator, he will request the exhumation of his lieutenants, annulment of sentences, repeal of amnesty… There will be no end."

"Those who oppose the exhumation of a dictator Lord of death and pain are against full democracy," Christina Fallaras exclaimed. "Today is a day to celebrate, comrades #PSOE."

One twitter, Jorge Bustos, derided the government altogether, possibly hinting at parliamentarians' complete lack of priorities.

"Calvo assumes that the exhumation process will be ‘long.' It's a relief. For a moment we came to fear that we would only talk about Franco this week," he chided.

Some could not resist poking fun at the situation. "[For] Franco's exhumation, the best destination is the Santiago Bernaéu Stadium," one user jested, referencing the traditional home of football team Real Madrid.

One Twitter user lambasted Popular Party leader Pablo Casado Blanco for comments he made during a press conference Thursday

Pablo Casado yesterday in Menorca: "The exhumation of the one who governed long ago, happily in the past… "Did he govern? How easy was it to just say "murderer, criminal, dictator, genocidal…"

At the time, the Popular party leader was lashing out at the government decision to exhume Franco's remains, calling it a.

"The government is more interested in resurrecting ghosts of the past than to imagine a better future," Blanco lamented. "We will not let them get rid of the best history of Spain, the reconciliation of the transition, the embrace and the Covenant."

The Valley of the Fallen (Valle de los Caídos) memorial is a massive complex located at the San Lorenzo de El Escorial nearby Madrid.

It was built by the Franco dictatorship to honor victims of the 1936-1939 civil war, which unseated Spain's democratic government. Falangists often referred to the coup d'etat as a "glorious crusade".

The Falangist government began its construction in 1940 and inaugurated in on April 1, 1959.

The remains of around 34,000 victims from both sides of the war are buried there, with many of them unidentified. Removing the late dictator's remains has remained a controversial topic since the leader's death in 1975 at age 82.</s>Spain's center-left government says it has approved legal amendments ensuring that the remains of former dictator Gen. Francisco Franco will be dug up and removed from a controversial mausoleum.

Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo said the minority socialist government is certain that parliament will endorse Friday's decision, probably next month.

The amendments to Spain's Historical Memory Law of 2007 grant the government power to exhume Franco's body. That change aims to thwart legal efforts by Franco's descendants and supporters to block the exhumation.

Removing Franco's remains from the Valley of the Fallen, a mausoleum he ordered built 30 miles northwest of Madrid, would be a momentous event in Spain, which still bears social and political scars from the 1936-39 civil war.</s>Spain has taken another step towards dealing with the legacy of the civil war after the government approved the exhumation of the remains of Francisco Franco, which have lain in the Valley of the Fallen mausoleum near Madrid since his death in 1975.

The council of ministers voted in favour of the move, which was opposed by the rightwing People’s and Citizens parties. However, the decree only needed a simple majority to pass. The Socialist party of the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, the leftwing Podemos and the Catalan and Basque nationalist parties all voted in favour.

The decree means that after a dispute lasting many years, the removal of the former dictator’s remains will go ahead, probably later this year, despite opposition from Franco’s family.

His grandson, Francisco Franco Martínez Bordiú, said: “The government has taken this opportunistic, cowardly and vengeful decision. This is just a trick to win votes for the left.”

Pablo Casado, the leader of the People’s party, which emerged from the reformist wing of the old Franco regime, criticised Sánchez for “reopening old wounds” in an effort to “cover up the fact that he is incapable of governing”.

The Citizens party, which is going head to head with the People’s party for the rightwing vote, also criticised the move.

“It seems that some want to return to the fratricidal battles between reds and blues, of confrontation and division, which is what bipartisan politics likes,” said Albert Rivera, the party leader. He claimed this type of politics was as obsolete as “listening to music on cassette or vinyl”.

While the opposition argued the decision would only reopen old wounds, these have never healed for millions of Spaniards.

While Franco has lain in splendour 37 miles (60km) outside Madrid, until recently, an estimated 140,000 of his opponents lay in unmarked graves around the country, buried where they were summarily executed during and after the civil war. The last of these executions was carried out in 1975.

In order to smooth the transition to democracy after Franco’s death, all parties agreed to a “pact of silence”, leaving the crimes of the civil war and its aftermath as unfinished business.

As a result, for decades before and after the transition, the “vanquished” in the civil war have had to live alongside the “victors”, often knowing their neighbours or local mayor are the people who murdered members of their family or confiscated their property.

No one has been prosecuted and, despite plans to establish a truth commission, those who committed crimes under the dictatorship are protected by an amnesty.

There has been no attempt at reconciliation regarding the civil war and it is only in recent years, when the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory was formed in the realisation that the witnesses to this history would soon be dead, that the issue has been addressed and the nation shaken from its collective amnesia.

Every day, fresh flowers are laid on Franco’s grave, but the fact it exists as a monument is seen as an insult to the millions who suffered and were driven into exile by his regime. While it is a crime in Germany to venerate Hitler and the Nazis, in Spain, there is a Francisco Franco National Foundation dedicated to his memory.

The exhumation is expected to be carried out in secret to avoid protests and it is not yet clear where the remains will be reburied. The government has given the family 15 days to come up with a proposal.

However, wherever his final resting place, what the furore about his removal makes clear is that, while the dictator may be long dead, his legacy is very much still with us.</s>MADRID: Spain’s Socialist government passed a decree on Friday allowing the exhumation of the remains of Francisco Franco from his vast mausoleum, a decision that divides Spaniards and has opened old wounds. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who came to power in June after he ousted his conservative predecessor in a confidence vote, has made removing the late dictator from the divisive monument in the Valle de los Caidos (Valley of the Fallen) near Madrid one of his priorities. “As an established and European democracy, Spain cannot allow for symbols that divide Spaniards,” Sanchez told public broadcaster TVE shortly after he came to power, adding such a mausoleum would be “unthinkable” in other European nations that had fascist dictatorships like Italy and Germany.</s>related media assets (image or videos) available. Click to see the gallery.

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Spain's government passed a decree on Friday to smooth the way for the relocation of the remains of former dictator Francisco Franco with the aim of turning his mausoleum into a memorial for the victims of the Spanish civil war.

MADRID: Spain's government passed a decree on Friday to smooth the way for the relocation of the remains of former dictator Francisco Franco with the aim of turning his mausoleum into a memorial for the victims of the Spanish civil war.

Critics call the "Valley of the Fallen" site, marked by a 152 metre-high cross on a mountainside near Madrid, the only remaining monument to a fascist leader in Europe.

The decree reduces the risk of legal claims preventing the exhumation of Franco's remains, including by his descendants. During his rule, from the end of the civil war in 1939 to his death in 1975, tens of thousands were killed or imprisoned in a campaign to wipe out dissent.

The measure needs to be approved by the rest of parliament, where Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez holds only a quarter of seats, but it is unlikely to be voted down.

"Only the mortal remains of people who died as a result of the Spanish Civil War will lie in the Valley of the Fallen," deputy prime minister Carmen Calvo told a news conference.

The legislative process to turn the monument into "a place of commemoration, remembrance and homage to the victims of the war" should be finished by the end of the year, Calvo said.</s>SPAIN’S SOCIALIST GOVERNMENT passed a decree today allowing the exhumation of the remains of Francisco Franco from his vast mausoleum, a decision that divides Spaniards and has opened old wounds.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who came to power in June after he ousted his conservative predecessor in a confidence vote, has made removing the late dictator’s remains from the monument in the Valle de los Caidos (Valley of the Fallen) near Madrid one of his priorities.

“A country looking to the future must be at peace with its past,” he tweeted after his cabinet passed the decree, saying the exhumation was needed to “restore dignity to the victims of Francoism”.

Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo said the exhumation, which is fiercely opposed by the late dictator’s descendants, could take place at the end of the year.

“We can’t lose a single minute,” she told a news conference, although the decree will still have to be approved by parliament.

“We are celebrating 40 years of a democratic Spain, of a stable and mature constitutional order… and this is not compatible with a public tomb where we continue to glorify Franco.”

Sanchez’s Socialists say they want to convert the site into a place of “reconciliation” and memory for all Spaniards.

General Franco, who ruled Spain with an iron fist from the end of the country’s 1936-39 civil war until his death in 1975, is buried in an imposing basilica carved into a mountain-face just 50 kilometres (30 miles) outside Madrid with a 150-metre (500-feet) cross towering over it.

Built by Franco’s regime between 1940 and 1959 –- in part by the forced labour of some 20,000 political prisoners –- the monument holds the remains of around 37,000 dead from both sides of the civil war, which was triggered by Franco’s rebellion against an elected Republican government.

It was long used as a place to pay tribute to Franco on the anniversary of his death, but that was stopped by a 2007 law.

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 critics say it is unacceptable to give such ostentatious recognition to a brutal dictator.

And they say the families of the Republicans were never told about their transfer to the valley.

General Franco's brother-in-law Ramon Serrano Suner, General Franco and Benito Mussolini at Bordighera in Italy. Source: PA Archive/PA Images

Critics compare the situation with neighbouring Portugal, where late dictator Antonio de Oliveira Salazar is buried in a municipal cemetery, or Italy, where former fascist leader Benito Mussolini lies in a family crypt.

Visitor numbers to the site have soared since the government announced its plans. Spain’s national heritage agency that runs the monument said over 38,000 people visited in July compared to over 23,000 in June.

The decree is now expected to pass in parliament as it is supported by far-left party Podemos as well as Catalan separatist parties and a Basque nationalist party.

But it is fiercely opposed by Franco’s descendants who are refusing to take his remains to the family sepulchral vault, and the main opposition conservative Popular Party (PP) which has warned it will challenge the decree in court.

“It is more important (to Sanchez) to revive the ghosts of the past than to try to seduce people with the future. He is more interested in opening the wounds of our worst past than in concentrating on our better present,” new PP leader Pablo Casado told reporters Thursday.

The deputy prime minister said if Franco’s family refuses to transfer the remains to the family vault, the government will pick a spot to bury him.

The government also announced last month that it wanted to establish a truth commission on wrongdoings during the civil war and dictatorship, and annul politically motivated Franco-era court decisions.

Around 41 percent of Spaniards approve of removing Franco from his mausoleum, compared with 38.5 percent who oppose the move, according to an opinion poll published last month in centre-right daily newspaper El Mundo.

But even though a slim majority are in favour of the move, 54 percent of those surveyed said they did not think now was the right time to do it.
The Spanish government passes a decree which amends the Historical Memory Law to allow the government to exhume Francisco Franco's remains from the Valle de los Caídos.