Franco’s Exhumation and the Unsettled Legacy of Spain’s Democratic Transition

On June 4, Spain’s Supreme Tribunal halted the exhumation of Gen. Francisco Franco’s remains from his burial site at El Valle de los Caidos, or The Valley of the Fallen, only days before it was scheduled to take place on June 10, and almost a year after the Spanish Parliament had authorized it. The tribunal ruled that Franco’s family, which had brought the case, must be allowed to appeal the government’s decision to exhume the former dictator’s remains and rebury them at a family tomb. Notwithstanding the Supreme Tribunal’s ruling, the struggle over Franco’s exhumation has little to do with […]