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New mayor’s first job: Rid Spanish town of Francoist name

The incoming Socialist mayor of a town named in honour of Spain's former dictator Francisco Franco vowed Wednesday to rename it, a move fiercely opposed by his conservative predecessor.

Published: 30 May 2019 09:40 CEST
New mayor's first job: Rid Spanish town of Francoist name
Photo: AFP

Guadiana del Caudillo in southwest Spain was founded in the 1950s by the regime of Franco, whose title was “El Caudillo” or “The Commander”, with the goal of developing agriculture in this poor, rural region.

In a video published by online newspaper Hoy, Francisco Moreno said the “first measure” he will take as mayor of Guadiana del Cuadillo will be to propose two motions in the municipal council to remove the two last words from the town's name, and all other “Francoist symbols”.

Moreno's Socialists came out on top during Sunday's local elections in the town, defeating the incumbent mayor from far-right party Vox who had for years refused to change its name. 

Moreno is expected to be sworn in as the mayor of Guadiana del Cuadillo, which is home to some 2,500 people, in mid-June.   

Several other towns founded during the dictatorship still include an homage to Franco in their name, such as Alberche del Caudillo and Llanos del Caudillo in the region of Castilla-La Mancha south of Madrid.

A 2007 law requires Spanish mayors to remove Francoist symbols from public buildings and spaces.

But many conservative city councils have refused to respect the law, arguing it would only reopen old wounds.   

The outgoing mayor of Guadiana del Caudillo, who recently joined Vox after leaving the conservative Popular Party, had fiercely rejected calls to change the town's name and kept a plaque commemorating Franco on display in the town hall.

The failure to respect the 2007 law has cost the town about 400,000 euros ($445,000) in subsidies from the regional government, according to Moreno.   

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's Socialist government is planning to exhume Franco's remains from a vast mausoleum near Madrid on June 10 and move them to a more discreet cemetery in the Spanish capital.   

Franco came to power after Spain's 1936-39 civil war, which was triggered by his rebellion against an elected Republican government.   

He ruled Spain with an iron fist until his death in 1975.

READ ALSO: Franco will be exhumed in June despite family opposition

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TODAY IN FRANCE

France to compensate relatives of Algerian Harki fighters

France has paved the way towards paying reparations to more relatives of Algerians who sided with France in their country's independence war but were then interned in French camps.

Published: 16 May 2023 08:29 CEST
France to compensate relatives of Algerian Harki fighters

More than 200,000 Algerians fought with the French army in the war that pitted Algerian independence fighters against their French colonial masters from 1954 to 1962.

At the end of the war, the French government left the loyalist fighters known as Harkis to fend for themselves, despite earlier promises it would look after them.

Trapped in Algeria, many were massacred as the new authorities took revenge.

Thousands of others who fled to France were held in camps, often with their families, in deplorable conditions that an AFP investigation recently found led to the deaths of dozens of children, most of them babies.

READ ALSO Who are the Harkis and why are they still a sore subject in France?

French President Emmanuel Macron in 2021 asked for “forgiveness” on behalf of his country for abandoning the Harkis and their families after independence.

The following year, a law was passed to recognise the state’s responsibility for the “indignity of the hosting and living conditions on its territory”, which caused “exclusion, suffering and lasting trauma”, and recognised the right to reparations for those who had lived in 89 of the internment camps.

But following a new report, 45 new sites – including military camps, slums and shacks – were added on Monday to that list of places the Harkis and their relatives were forced to live, the government said.

Now “up to 14,000 (more) people could receive compensation after transiting through one of these structures,” it said, signalling possible reparations for both the Harkis and their descendants.

Secretary of state Patricia Miralles said the decision hoped to “make amends for a new injustice, including in regions where until now the prejudices suffered by the Harkis living there were not recognised”.

Macron has spoken out on a number of France’s unresolved colonial legacies, including nuclear testing in Polynesia, its role in the Rwandan genocide and war crimes in Algeria.

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