MADRID, Aug. 24 (Xinhua) -- The Spanish cabinet of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez approved a legislative decree on Friday to exhume the remains of Francisco Franco, almost 43 years after his death in November 1975, deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo confirmed in a press conference.
The decree adapts Spain's current "Historical Memory Law" to ensure there is no legal challenge to removing Franco's body from its current resting place in the Valle de los Caidos (The Valley of the Fallen) to the north of Madrid.
The right-wing People's Party and center-right party Ciudadanos have both said they will not support the move, but it is doubtful they would vote against it when it is presented to the Spanish Congress, probably in September.
Meanwhile Franco's seven surviving grandchildren have expressed their opposition to the decision, which according to Calvo, will "permit the exhumation of the remains of Franco from the place where victims of the conflict (Spanish Civil War) lie."
Franco ruled Spain from 1939 until his death in 1975.
The Valle de los Caidos itself purports to be a memorial for all of the victims of the conflict. However, it was built largely by the slave labor of republican prisoners and, although it contains over 30,000 bodies, the only two named tombs are those of Franco and Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, the founder of the Falange party, who was executed by the Republic in November 1936.
Calvo said Primo de Rivera's body will be allowed to remain in the Valle de los Caidos as he, too, is a "victim" of the Civil war. However, "Having Franco's tomb there means there is a lack of respect and peace for the victims who are buried there," she said.
Calvo said the decision had come "late" and highlighted that "there is not a single democracy on the international stage that we would like to compare ourselves to that has maintained a situation such as the one we have maintained for 40 years."
"Democracy is not compatible with a tomb that honors the memory of Franco," she said.
