Story By: Lisa-Maria Goertz, Sub-Editor: Joana Mihajlovska, Agency: Newsflash
Spain has finally removed the last remaining statue of the notorious dictator Franco.
The last remaining homage to the dictator to exist in public was in the Autonomous Spanish city of Melilla, located on the northwest coast of Africa, bordering Morocco.
It was moved after a local council meeting voted in favour of removing the statue, and the operation to take it down happened the next day on the 23rd of February.
Francisco Franco Bahamonde, who fought on the side of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini to win the Spanish Civil war, ruled over Spain for 36 years until his death in 1975.
His rule is commonly referred to as the period of Francoist dictatorship and has a controversial legacy marked both by brutal repression with thousands of killings and also of economic prosperity.
This removal took place just 24 hours after it was voted on, with the right-wing party PP abstaining from the vote and the only vote against the removal from the other far-right party Vox.
Footage shows builders working to remove the large statue of Franco dressed in a legionary field suit with a baton in one hand and binoculars in the other.
According to national newspaper Nius Diario, the operation lasted an hour and attracted many onlookers.
The Mayor-President of Melilla, Eduardo de Castro Gonzalez, told the local press that the statue will be kept in “some municipal warehouses”, although there is no further information as to whether there are plans to use it in a museum, as have been done with some others in Spain.
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