King Felipe VI declined to attend an event at the Reina Sofia museum on Wednesday 8th January marking 50 years since the death of dictator Francisco Franco, citing a “schedule clash”. The event was part of a programme of up to 100 commemorative events organised by the left-wing PSOE party under leader Pedro Sanchez.
At Wednesday’s event Sanchez warned against rising right-wing sentiment, stating “autocratic values and regimes are advancing in half the world.” He argued the purpose of these commemorative events was to prevent young people from forgetting the reality of dictatorship. The King to date has not attended any of the events in honour of the victims of the dictatorship, and many on the left view his latest move as a political snub.
The move by the King has been praised by conservative commentators, claiming the King is protecting the political neutrality that his largely ceremonial role should be upheld. This comes as right-wing opposition parties PP (Popular Party) and Vox condemned Sanchez’s decision to host commemorative events as an attempt to use the legacy of Franco to reopen old wounds and distract from the fragility of the current minority government. The right-wing opposition has previously criticised the Sanchez governments’ Democratic Memory Bill, which aimed to cover a wider range of victims and crimes related to Francoism, and permitted the exhumation of mass graves. The ghost of Franco’s memory clearly still hangs over Spain, especially in regions such as Catalonia where regional languages and cultural expressions were harshly repressed.
This comes as right-wing opposition parties PP (Popular Party) and Vox condemned Sanchez’s decision to host commemorative events as an attempt to use the legacy of Franco to reopen old wounds and distract from the fragility of the current minority government.
Importantly, the relationship between the monarchy and Franco is a complex one. A few years before his death in 1975, Franco appointed Juan Carlos I of Bourbon, Felipe’s father, as his successor. After several temporary transfers of power, Juan Carlos became the ruler of Spain after his death. Franco undoubtedly intended Juan Carlos to continue his authoritarian legacy, but he instead played a significant role in dismantling it, facilitating the democratic transition, or ‘La Transición’. This transition involved the transfer of power and sovereignty back to the people through extensive political reform, which resulted in the eventual loss of power for the monarchy. King Felipe’s decision to not attend the recent event is therefore significant in the context of the monarchy’s role in the democratic transition.
King Felipe’s decision to not attend the recent event is therefore significant in the context of the monarchy’s role in the democratic transition.
The participation of the King Emeritus Juan Carlos in the ongoing commemorative events has been left up to the Royal House and is yet unknown, though he has recently been involved in scandal. Juan Carlos was accused of concealing a “gift” of nearly $100 million given to him by the King of Saudi Arabia in 2018, which spiralled into a series of revelations about his financial conduct. Since August 2020, he has resided in Saudi Arabia and made no public statements.
It is clear that the damage caused by decades of brutal repression under Franco has not yet healed. With many in Spain concerned about the stability of Sanchez’s government and the tendency of Vox’s anti-immigrant, nationalist rhetoric to parallel Francoist narratives, King Felipe’s decision to not attend the Reina Sofia museum event may divide the country further in a period of political unease.
