DICTATOR General Francisco Franco's body could be removed from the war memorial and mausoleum known as the Valle de los Caídos as early as this Thursday – despite the opposition criticising president Pedro Sánchez for exhuming the fascist leader ahead of the official national electoral campaign period.
Franco, who died in 1975 after having maintained the country in the iron grip of a far-right dictatorship since he won the Civil War in 1939, was buried in the Valle de los Caídos ('Valley of the Fallen') in San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Greater Madrid region – but in recent years, his resting place has caused major controversy among those who remember life during his reign and whose relatives perished or suffered at his hands.
The mausoleum and basilica is supposedly a burial ground for the dictator's victims, and their families do not consider it appropriate that they should be resting in the same grounds as the man who brought about their deaths.
Now Franco's family has lost its appeals against his exhumation and transfer, the late leader will be lifted from his current site this Thursday, October 24, in their presence and moved to the cemetery serving the Madrid towns of Mingorrubio and El Pardo, from 10.30 in the morning.
Spain's government had set a deadline for his transfer of October 25, before the cabinet knew they would be putting their jobs on the line again in the fourth general election in as many years on November 10.
State operators, the funeral directors commissioned by the government, and justice minister Dolores Delgado acting as notary will be present, as well as Franco's family, who have confirmed they will be attending the reburial despite their objections to not being given a choice as to where he will be interred.
The Franco family wanted him to be buried in Madrid's Almudena Cathedral, but as this is a public place of worship and a tourist attraction, the Supreme Court ruled against it.
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