The family of late Spanish right-wing dictator, Francisco Franco, has lost a bid to stop government plans to move his remains from a state mausoleum to a cemetery outside of Madrid.
The appeal was unanimously rejected, Spain’s Supreme Court said in a statement on Tuesday.
Franco’s relatives wanted the dictator’s remains to stay in the Valley of the Fallen Mausoleum, or be taken to the Almudena Cathedral in central Madrid.
The Valley of the Fallen, erected by Franco in honour of those who died on his side of the Spanish Civil War, is currently a pilgrimage site for Franco followers and right-wing extremists.
Spain’s caretaker Socialist government has approved exhumation plans as part of a bid to transform the Valley of the Fallen into a place of national reconciliation.
Franco ruled Spain from 1939, when his forces won the Spanish Civil War, until his death in 1975.
Removing Franco’s body from its tomb in the Valley of the Fallen has been one of the key priorities of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ party (PSOE) since it came to power in June last year.
PSOE argues that the basilica and its 150-metre-high cross are a monument to the Franco regime that glorifies the winners of the civil war rather than commemorating its victims.
“The wounds have been open for many years. Too many years. The time has come to close them,” Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, told parliament 14 months ago.
But the move has been bitterly opposed by the dictator’s family and admirers.
In June this year, just days before Franco’s body was due to be dug up, the Supreme Court ordered the exhumation to be suspended while it considered an appeal from his family and other groups.
The hulking monument, which was partly built by captured Republicans and political prisoners, is a mass grave containing the remains of more than 30,000 people who fought on both sides of the war.
Although supposedly a memorial to all those killed in the conflict, only two graves are marked: Franco’s and that of José Antonio Primo de Rivera, the founder of the Falangist party.
The Francisco Franco Foundation, which exists to promote and preserve the fascist dictator’s legacy – and which was also part of the legal challenge – is already weighing up its next moves.
President of the foundation, Juan Chicharro Ortega, had expressed confidence “in the strength of our arguments.
“We’ll have to see what happens, but the signs and media leaks may suggest that the Supreme Court will approve the exhumation order”.
