Spain withdraws 33 titles given by dictator Francisco Franco to family and allies

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Spain on Friday abolished 33 titles of nobility granted by dictator Francisco Franco and his successor to loyal officials and family members, with the entry into force of a new democratic memory law, approved by the center-left government.

The move affects two of Franco’s grandchildren, as well as the descendants of several of his top generals, ministers and other high-ranking officials.

The law eliminates titles that extol the civil war and military dictatorship and equates “glorifying the perpetrators of crimes against humanity” with humiliating the victims of the Franco regime. At least 114,000 civilians forcibly disappeared during the dictatorship, according to a 2008 court ruling.

Franco’s dictatorship ran in Spain from 1939 to 1975, after he led a military coup against the left-wing Popular Front government of the Second Republic, sparking a three-year civil war that claimed 500,000 lives.

While most titles were bestowed by Franco himself as a reward for loyalty, five people affected by the law were ennobled by his successor as head of state, former King Juan Carlos I, in the early months of his reign following Franco’s death in 1975.

Francisco Franco Martinez-Bordiu, the dictator’s eldest grandson, who inherited the title of Senhor de Meirás from Franco’s widow, described abolition as “absurd and without any practical effects” in a July interview with the newspaper El Independiente. “I will continue to be Lord of Meiras [na região da Galícia] even if the government doesn’t recognize it,” he said.

His sister, Carmen Martinez-Bordiu, will be stripped of the Duchy of Franco, granted by Juan Carlos I to Franco’s only daughter shortly after the dictator’s death.

Others affected by the law include relatives of the founder of the fascist Falange party, José Antonio Primo de Rivera, and descendants of Generals Gonzalo Queipo de Llano and Juan Yagüe, who ordered massacres of civilians in the cities of Seville and Badajoz, respectively.

Fourteen years after Spain passed its first historical memory law, the new legislation aims to close loopholes and cover a wider range of Franco-related victims and crimes. It also promotes the search and exhumation of victims buried in more than 3,000 known mass graves.

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