Back home.

The ex-king of Spain Juan Carlos I, exiled since August 2020 in the United Arab Emirates after accusations of embezzlement, set foot on Spanish soil again, Thursday May 19, shortly after 7 p.m. (5 p.m. GMT), after being slowly descended from his plane at the small airport in Vigo, Galicia, northwestern Spain, where he was greeted on the tarmac by his daughter, the Infanta Elena.

Many media and curious had made the trip to try to see behind the fences of the airport the ex-king, 84 years old, whose return has caused a lot of ink to flow.

>> To see: "Rise and decadence of Juan Carlos: the Spanish monarchy in danger?"

While Juan Carlos I saw the judicial investigations against him dismissed in March, the revelations about the opaque origin of his fortune have definitively undermined the image of this figure adored for decades for having led Spain's democratic transition after the death of dictator Franco in 1975.

"The information we have had in recent years" on Juan Carlos "is very worrying (...) for the (monarchical) institution" and "I believe that he will have to give explanations without a doubt", insisted Thursday the Minister of Economy and number two in the government, Nadia Calviño, on radio Cadena Ser.

Juan Carlos intends to return "regularly"

The former sovereign is due to attend a regatta in Sanxenxo this weekend, in which the "Bribon" will participate, a sailboat with which he was world champion in 2017. He will then travel to Madrid on Monday to see his son, King Felipe VI, and his wife Sofia, before leaving the same day for Abu Dhabi "where he has established his permanent and stable residence", the Palace insisted on Wednesday evening.

Before ensuring that Juan Carlos, who now intends to return "regularly to Spain" to see "his family and friends", will always stay "in a private place of residence".

According to the Spanish media, the government of socialist Pedro Sánchez was, in fact, fiercely opposed to the fact that he could be accommodated in the Zarzuela Palace, the official residence of the sovereign, who is the head of state.

>> To read also: "Jose Manuel Villarejo, the blackmailer who makes the Spanish elites tremble"

Member of the ruling coalition, the radical left party Podemos fired red balls at the former sovereign.

“Anyone returning to our country with the history of King Juan Carlos I would be arrested at the border and brought to justice,” he denounced Thursday on Twitter.

On the right, the leader of the Popular Party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, on the other hand defended the "right" of Juan Carlos to "return to Spain" while justice closed his investigations.

Many residents of Sanxenxo thought the same.

"He did good things and I think he needs to come back to his family," Ester del Río, 54, told AFP.

"A flood of ethical reasons explaining the confusion caused by the announcement of his trip"

The ex-king, who abdicated in 2014 amid scandals, left Spain in August 2020 for Abu Dhabi after increasingly compromising revelations about his lifestyle and the opaque origin of his fortune.

He then explained that he wanted to "facilitate" Felipe VI "the exercise" of his functions in the face of "the public consequences of certain past events in (his) private life".

Unable to prosecute him "because of the insufficiency of incriminating evidence, the prescription of the offenses and the immunity" which he enjoyed as head of state until 2014, the Spanish prosecutor's office filed in March the three investigations targeting him for suspicion of corruption or money laundering.

However, he highlighted the "tax irregularities" of which the former king was guilty and which led him to make two tax adjustments for more than 5 million euros.

>> To read also: "Exile of Juan Carlos: 'It is not an escape but a way for the monarchy to protect itself'"

"There is no legal reason preventing the former king from traveling to Spain, but there is a flood of ethical reasons explaining the turmoil caused by the announcement of his trip", underlined in an editorial El País, the country's leading general-interest daily.

Trying to restore the image of the Spanish monarchy since his accession to the throne in 2014, Felipe VI has distanced himself from his father.

He thus decided in March 2020 to renounce the inheritance of his father and to withdraw his annual allowance of nearly 200,000 euros.

With AFP

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