The Supreme Court has put a stop to the appeals that the Francisco Franco Foundation has filed against the changes in the street map of Madrid that, in application of the Historical Memory Law, have removed the names of Francoist personalities from plaques and monuments in the capital. The contentious judges have established in a ruling that this foundation, dedicated to exalting the memory of the dictator, does not have active standing to appeal these changes unless they directly affect the name of Franco. In the case of Madrid, this is reduced to two changes: the old Plaza del Caudillo, today Plaza de El Pardo, and the old Travesía del General Franco, today dedicated to Diego Torres Villarroel.
The Supreme Court endorses the withdrawal of Francoist names from the Madrid street map
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The judges understand that the ability of the Francoist Foundation to appeal should not go “beyond its figure” taking into account that they do not even identify “what exactly this legacy consists of, nor why it considers it worthy of being transmitted to subsequent generations ”. Do what the asks for Francisco Franco National Foundation It would mean, say the judges, allowing them to become a “sort of sui generis popular action.”
The sentence reproaches the Franco Foundation for not being able to explain in its appeal how the removal of the names of military coup leaders or ministers of the Franco regime from the street map of Madrid negatively affects it: “Neither, finally, does the specific damage caused by the change of name of the streets, except for the feeling of nostalgia produced by the passage of time that increases with the arrival of very different ones”, he explains.
This ruling comes after the same Supreme Court decided in December 2022 to endorse the withdrawal of Francoist names from street names in application of the 2007 Historical Memory Law. At that time the judges endorsed the decision made in 2017 by the consistory Madrid, with Manuela Carmena at the helm, to remove the street from the Francoist military Asensio Cabanillas, currently dedicated to the poet Ángela Figuera. Giving a street to a coup plotter, the Supreme Court already ruled then, is “an act of exaltation” of the dictatorship.
The resolution that limits the capacity of the Franco Foundation to present this type of resources has a dissenting vote of the magistrate José Luis Requero. This judge explains that the objective of the Foundation is precisely to exalt Francoism and that this corresponds to being able to file this type of appeal: “There is a direct link between what was aired in the lawsuit, whether or not there is exaltation of Francoism in the name of certain streets, and the purposes of the appellant in favor of that regime.”
