The remains of a fascist leader whose movement supported Gen. Franco’s dictatorship were dug up and reburied on Monday, reigniting Spain's debate over its complex past and enraging far-right activists.
The Spanish government ordered the exhumation of the body of Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, who founded the fascist Falange movement, from its resting place in an enormous mountainside mausoleum 40 miles from the capital, Madrid. He was then reburied at a city cemetery in a private family ceremony.
The move — carried out as a small group of sympathizers chanted and gave fascist salutes — is part of an effort to prevent the glorification of the country's totalitarian past, which comes as the far-right seeks political breakthroughs across Europe.
It follows the exhumation of General Franco’s remains from the same place — previously known as the Valley of the Fallen — in 2019, after he was originally buried there on his death in 1975. The site was partly built with forced prison labor to commemorate the fascist victory in the civil war and for many the site represents the horrors of the war and Franco's subsequent dictatorship.
As with Franco's reinternment, Monday's move has angered Spain’s current far-right movement, which sees Primo de Rivera and Franco as nationalist heroes. Santiago Abascal, leader of the populist Vox Party, has accused Spain's government of moving a patriot who "gave his life for Spain."
The party's vice-president, Jorge Buxadé, said on Twitter: "If they don't respect the dead, does anyone think they respect the living, the workers, the farmer, those who have a vocation to serve Spain?"
Vox has called for a "reconquest" of Spain and has suggested building a wall around Spain's north African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla.
Vox became the country's third-biggest political party after a 2019 national election, with 3.6 million votes and 52 lawmakers in the Congress of Deputies, Spain's lower house of Parliament. Opinion polls say the party remains the third most popular, with about 15% of national support.
Under a new Democratic Memory law passed last year the site officially reverted to its original name, the Valley of Cuelgamuros. Spain's socialist government plans to convert the site into a lasting tribute to the 500,000 people killed during the civil war, which lasted from 1936 to 1939.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said when the law was passed in October that it would "settle Spanish democracy’s debt to its past."
The mausoleum, with its 500-foot spire and cross, was partially built by the labor of Republican prisoners under Franco's orders.
Presidency Minister Felix Bolanos told reporters in Barcelona on Friday: “No person or ideology that evokes the dictatorship should be honored or extolled there.”
“It’s another step in the resignification of the valley.”