A FAMOUS mausoleum-turned-tourist attraction just outside Madrid has been shut to the public since 18.00 this evening (Friday) for the remains of late dictator General Francisco Franco to be exhumed.
With a fresh general election on the cards for November 10, Spain's acting socialist government was keen to move the fascist leader's body whilst still in power and has announced Franco will be at his new burial site by October 25 at the latest.
He currently rests at the Valle de los Caídos ('Valley of the Fallen') in San Lorenzo del Escorial in the Greater Madrid region – sharing burial space with thousands of victims of his own brutal régime.
Despite complaints from residents who fear their local graveyard will become a macabre pilgrimage site for supporters of the dictator whose death in 1975 triggered the start of a new democratic Spain, Franco will be buried at the cemetery shared by the Madrid towns of El Pardo and Mingorrubio.
Other than authorities and professionals who need to be present, the dictator's family and media sources will be permitted to attend the burial, but will not be given details of the exact site until 48 hours before it.
Nobody, not even the family, will be allowed to film or photograph it, although those present will be permitted to 'celebrate a brief and intimate ceremony in accordance with their religious preferences'.
Franco's surviving family – his grandchildren – appealed unsuccessfully against the exhumation.
They then called for the dictator's remains to be transferred to the crypt of the Almudena Cathedral in Madrid, but this request was turned down as the site is a public place of worship, and a tourist attraction.
Just over two weeks ago, the Franco family solicitor announced a planned appeal to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on the grounds that the dictator's clan were being denied the choice of where to bury him – a view widely supported by the far-right political party Vox.
But descendants of Franco's victims say that the body of a fascist dictator's lying next to those he tortured, imprisoned and killed is a situation that 'has no place' in a 21st-century democracy – and European Union leaders, Spain's acting president Pedro Sánchez and his PSOE government all concur with this view.
