• Commission targets 8 individuals, 5 groups associated with Franco regime
• Falange, JONS and military to lose ‘Medal of Honour’, ‘Favourite Son’ accolades
Madrid’s municipal Historical Memory Commission has issued its first recommendations since being established by Madrid Mayor Manuela Carmena, calling for the rescinding of honorable mentions and honorary titles previously bestowed by the city on eight individuals and five organisations closely associated with the 35-year dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco and the prior military uprising that sparked Spain’s bloody 1936-39 Civil War.
The measures recommended by the commission, presided over by former Socialist party senator Paca Saquillo, will be formally proposed to the city’s Culture Commission and then voted upon by the full municipal council before taking effect. They include rescinding the title of “Favourite Son” to two military officers who participated in the 1936 military uprising against the democratically elected Republican government, and withdrawal of the city’s “Medal of Honour” from seven individuals closely associated with the Franco regime, including leaders of the Spanish Falange movement, military officers who participated in the 1936 uprising and a former Franco-era ambassador to Nazi Germany.
Pending approval by the full Madrid municipal council, the recommendations would likewise retire the “Medal of Honour” distinction from right-wing labour union, youth and women’s movements closely associated with the Falange in Madrid during the Franco years, as well as a paramilitary street-fighting unit of the Falange and JONS movements implicated in the repression and killing of Republican labour and political activists immediately prior to and during the Civil War.
► Read More in Spanish at El Confidencial and El Mundo …
