The remains of the dictators will be transferred to the Madrid cemetery of Pardo.

The remains of the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco will be exhumed on Thursday of the monumental mausoleum in which they rest near Madrid, announced Monday the Spanish government. They will then be transferred to the Pardo Cemetery, in the suburbs of the Spanish capital, an operation that will take place "in the presence of the dictator's family," the government said in a statement.

Several appeals filed in vain

"The exhumation as the re-burial will be in the privacy, in the presence of his relatives" and the Minister of Justice Dolores Delgado, the statement added. The Franco family had unsuccessfully filed lawsuits to keep the dictator's remains in the magnificent marble mausoleum of the Valle de los Caidos, surmounted by a gigantic cross built in the mountains 50 kilometers north-west of Madrid.

Since taking office in June 2018, Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has made the exhumation of Franco one of his priorities so that the mausoleum is no longer a place of apology for Francoism. On September 25, the Spanish Supreme Court rejected the family's latest appeal, upholding the Socialist government's decision to exhume the remains.