- The last part: Francisco Franco leaves the Valley of the Fallen
- Politics: Pedro Sánchez announces that the transfer of other remains of the Valley of the Fallen will be addressed: "Spain is the fruit of forgiveness but not forgetting"
- Homily: This was the response read at Mass for the burial of Francisco Franco
- Album: The exhumation of Francisco Franco, in detail
The body of the last dictator of the History of Spain was reinhumed this Thursday by law and his soul revived by Franco. While the coffin was on the way to the subsoil, a handful of nostalgics of the Regime took out walking flags with eagles, recovered the Face to the Sun and prayed a rosary full of pending accounts with democracy.
This Thursday was 2019. Except in the Mingorrubio cemetery .
The 24-O in El Pardo was an experiment of the past, the alteration of physics, a journey through time. Back, of course.
For rewinding, he went to Tejero . And twice: the coup guard and his son priest. The second was planned, because Franco's family had asked to officiate the Mass in the crypt. But the first was a surprise for everyone: journalists, police officers and the two hundred Francoists concentrated 700 meters from the graves.
The former Civil Guard colonel appeared in the middle of the morning and the mass went into love combustion. «Long live Tejero!», «Brave!», «With two balls, my colonel!» ... During the previous hours, almost all the demonstrators had behaved well with the journalists, except for some inquisitive looks, a couple of insults and lucid comments between corrillos: "Look at them, they are carrion."
So the appearance of Tejero, the coup player, stirred the collective adrenaline and some addicts shook and beat several informants. «I have felt outrage», told the journalist of Antena 3 Concha Olmos after receiving two punches in the back and a push when trying to protect his camera from the aggression of other concentrates.
The police separated the journalists and constrained them in front of the protesters. And 70 meters from the two groups, Antonio Tejero relaxed with other people, laughter included.
«What is needed here is an uncle with two eggs like the one they are going to bury there. This is an aberration ». I said it, Legion cap at the ready, Rafael López . Beside him, José , "José, a Spaniard," said he had come "to pay homage to the Caudillo desecrated in his grave by the squat of Moncloa."
- You carry a flag with an unconstitutional shield. Why?
- Because this is the flag of the Spain of good and because the Constitution is atheistic and antispañola.
While journalists were waiting at the cemetery door for news of the transfer of the coffin by helicopter and the arrival of the family by road, in the Mingorrubio neighborhood mall, the assembled people made time sanctifying the pictorial and sound paraphernalia of Francoism.
A man in blue shirt sleeves with rojigualdos braces and eagle keychain, shouts from Top Spain! Viva Franco !, two young men in khaki and black with sunglasses and flags, a lady in a red scarf and gualda, people with the Falange arrows embroidered on their clothes ...
And even a priest with cassock. Romanian. «My name is Marius Visovan and I have come from my country just for this. I want to honor the memory of General Franco, who was a great fighter against communism ». The priest, who would later live a rosary in front of the graveyard gate, proved to be informed. «The Spanish Church has not protested against exhumation». Today he will be back in Romania .
Criticisms of the Spanish episcopal dome were common among the crowd. And among the Franco. «The Government , with the endorsement of the other powers of the State and of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, has consummated the desecration of the grave of our grandfather ...». It was the first paragraph of the statement that Francis Franco distributed among journalists at the end of the funeral, a ceremony that the Minister of Justice, Dolores Delgado, had to witness with the family to attest that the body was buried.
While Franco's older grandson said that the family had been held in the crypt under the accusation of trying to take pictures, two other granddaughters left the cemetery with an eagle-stamped flag.
More live past.
A couple of hours earlier, the coffin had reached Mingorrubio by helicopter. Only the shooting of the cameras and the live connections broke the slow and ancient rhythm of the hearse entering a cemetery that contains no victims of Francoism, or unidentified bones.
It was 2:42 p.m. on October 24, 2019. A few meters away, among rosaries, arms raised, songs in the sun and flags from before, no.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
Know more- Franco exhumation
- Francisco Franco Bahamonde
- Valley of the Fallen
- Dolores Delgado
- Historical memory
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Historical memory The last part: Francisco Franco leaves the Valley of the Fallen
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