The mortal remains of José Antonio Primo de Rivera, founder of the Falange, arrived after midday this Monday at the San Isidro cemetery in Madrid after being exhumed from the Basilica of the Valley of the Fallen. Unlike what happened with Francisco Franco, it has occurred discreetly at the request of his descendants. But there have also been moments of tension in the concentration of a hundred Falangists who were waiting in front of the cemetery for the arrival of the funeral procession.
When the coffin approached, some of those gathered there, fenced off by the Police on the opposite sidewalk, jumped over the police cordon and tried to get closer, at which time they were detained by the agents.. With shouts in honor of “José Antonio”, those gathered have expressed the discontent they feel at the Government's decision to have made the exhumation coincide with the 120th anniversary of the birth of Primo de Rivera and on the eve of the electoral campaign of the elections of the next May 28.
There have been three detainees -one of them is Martin Sáenz de Ynestrillas, brother of Ricardo Sáenz de Ynestrillas, who has been transferred to the Moratalaz police station- and five sanctioned, according to the Falange.
Tent to protect the basilica during the exhumation.
The exhumation operation had begun at 6:00 a.m., without the presence of authorities or the press, and consisted of removing the 1,500-kilo granite tombstone that covers the grave where his remains have rested since 1959.. There were 80 people authorized to attend the exhumation, including relatives, monks, members of security and the operators themselves in charge of extracting the coffin.
After removing the coffin, the prior of the Benedictine abbey, Santiago Cantera, prayed a response together with the descendants of Primo de Rivera. At the gates of the Cuelgamuros Valley, two hearses were waiting for the transfer to the San Isidro cemetery, the place chosen by the family and where other of their relatives are buried.. The hearse has arrived at the new location after 1:00 p.m.
The movement of vehicles has been continuous since early in the morning at the access door to the compound, guarded by agents of the Civil Guard and where more than thirty journalists were.. Sources from the Ministry of the Presidency, Relations with the Courts and Democratic Memory have explained that, meanwhile, the necessary preliminary work continues to “advance” to carry out the exhumation of another 121 people buried in the crypt, whose remains have been claimed by their families. It will be done “as soon as the conditioning work that must be carried out in the enclosure in advance is finished.”
The funeral procession, in the Valley of the Fallen.
In front of the main gate of San Isidro, a hundred curious Falangists dressed in blue shirts and polo shirts have gathered. Among them has been Manuel Andrino, national head of La Falange. “We do not consider it an exhumation, we consider it a forced desecration by the garbage of the Democratic Memory Law,” said Andrino, who describes Primo de Rivera's family as “a coward for having decided to do it without making noise, in a way traitor”. “It doesn't matter where he is buried, what survives are his ideas, what he represented at the time and that is what the Falangists are left with, 80 years later we remain faithful to his ideas,” he added in front of a lamppost where stickers have been pasted with the flag of Spain, the face of Pedro Sánchez and the legend of “tomb robber”.
Manuel Andrino, head of the Falange. . m.
Jesús Heras, communication secretary of the Falange, explained that no call was made: “It has been a spontaneous concentration of Spaniards who have decided to pay tribute to our founder,” he assured.. “They shot the man, but not his ideas,” they have also pointed out to the concentrates.
“Let's see if they let me deliver it,” said a woman carrying a bouquet of flowers with roses and red carnations minutes before the arrival of the coffin, while a Falange spokesperson negotiated with the police to let them move to the front door from the cemetery, since they had been delimited on the sidewalk in front. At the time of the arrival of the funeral procession, they have broken the security cordon shouting “José Antonio/Primo de Rivera” and there has been tension and some confrontation with the agents. Immediately afterwards they have sung the Face to the Sun.
Antonio Ruiz, 66, is one of the supporters of Primo de Rivera who has come to witness the arrival of his remains. “A person who has been buried in a basilica for so many years, do you think they should be taken out for a walk after so many years?” he asked.
“Things have to be left in their place and it's over,” replied Faustio, 95, dressed in a suit jacket and next to the cemetery “because I live next door, out of curiosity”. In his opinion, “using miners for electoral purposes is not a great idea.”
“We consider fulfilled our will to dignify the figure of our great-uncle and achieve eternal rest so many times interrupted”. After the transfer of the coffin, the family of Primo de Rivera has spoken in these terms through a statement in which they have thanked “the understanding of many Spaniards who love and admire José Antonio and who have calmly understood the decision of the family that had that sole purpose”.
political reactions
The Government has celebrated the transfer. The Second Vice President of the Government and Minister of Labor and Social Economy, Yolanda Díaz, has said that with the exhumation “a historical anomaly” is closed, which “would probably not happen in any European country.”
The leader of Podemos and Minister of Social Rights, Ione Belarra, has described the exhumation as “good news for democracy” and has urged the application “more effectively of the Democratic Memory Law so that the relatives of the victims of fascism have reparation “. “We must get the fascists out of the mausoleums and the streets”, he added. Podemos and IU demand that the bodies of the republicans or anti-Francoists who are still buried in the Valley also be removed.
For his part, the spokesman for the campaign committee and deputy secretary of the PP, Borja Sémper, has assured that this operation “stinks” into a “game” by the Government of Pedro Sánchez to try to “distract” and “divert attention” as did in the past with Franco, seeking to “cover up the problems that Spain has”.
“They moved Franco, today they move Primo de Rivera, but what is moving are the mortgages, the shopping cart, what is moving is the price of life and the troubles of the Government”, Sémper said in a conference press at the PP headquarters after the meeting of the steering committee chaired by Alberto Núñez Feijóo.
“Resignification”
The exhumation complies with the provisions of the Democratic Memory Law of 2022, which prevents the presence of mortal remains in any “preeminent” place of the compound, as is the case of Primo de Rivera and as was the case until 2019 with the dictator Francisco Franco, also buried next to the high altar in the year 1975. In other words, the law allowed their remains to be kept in the Valley of the Fallen, like those of the more than 33,000 combatants from both sides of the Civil War who rest in their crypts, as long as they left the prominent place they occupy in the temple, but their descendants have preferred to take them to a Catholic cemetery.
Franco was transferred to the El Pardo cemetery on October 24, 2019 by decision of the Government, in what was the first step towards the complete “resignification” of the enclave built after the Civil War thanks to the work of thousands of Republican prisoners.
On that occasion, the Government did specify the details of the exhumation process and the transfer of the coffin by helicopter to El Pardo, broadcast live by the press amid great expectation, and after an intense political controversy fueled by the resistance of the family of the dictator to that decision.
After the exhumation of Franco in 2019, that of General Gonzalo Queipo de Llano from the Basilica of La Macarena in Seville in 2022, and that of Primo de Rivera this Monday, the list of exhumed Francoism figures is only missing two big names: General José Moscardó and Lieutenant Colonel Jaime Milans del Bosch. Both are buried in the Alcazar of Toledo.