Spain grants Dukedom of Franco to dictator's granddaughter

The Spanish government wants to take away the dukedom that the granddaughter of dictator Francisco Franco inherited this week. On Tuesday, it was confirmed that the noble title of the general whose military dictatorship ruled Spain for 40 years had officially been granted to Carmen Martínez-Bordiú Franco after inheriting it from her mother.

The order was signed by the People's Party government just one day before being ousted by a no confidence vote, setting the process of granting the application in motion. It was not only until this Tuesday that Spain's Official Gazzete made the nomination official.

Annulling Franco dukedom

In response, Spain’s new Socialist government said it is now looking at the “very feasible” possibility of modifying the decree of 1912 that establishes the rules and regulations for passing on noble titles. That would then allow the executive to go ahead and annul the Franco dukedom.

According to the current Spanish executive, the title must be abolished because it contravenes Spain's Law of Historical Memory, which legally obliges the public authorities to do away with symbols and celebrations of the military uprising that put Franco in power, and the decades-long dictatorship that followed.

Spain’s Socialist party, when still in opposition earlier this year, opposed the decision to approve the granting of the title by Mariano Rajoy’s PP government of the time.

Franco's granddaughter

Carmen Martínez-Bordiú Franco applied for the title of Duke of Franco after the death of her mother, Franco's daughter, at the end of last year. The 2006 modification of legislation governing the succession of titles that brought male primogeniture to an end meant that Carmen Martínez-Bordiú, aged 67, became the legitimate heir to the title.

Valle de los Caídos monument

The new Spanish government has also said that it intends to exhumate the dictator Franco's remains from the place where he has been buried for more than 40 years, 'a prominent place' in the Valle de los Caídos (Valley of the Fallen) monument. It is a location in the Madrid region where tens of thousands of the dead who fought on both sides of the Spanish Civil War are buried.