• Broad-based committee to rename 150 streets, plazas honoring Franco era
• Names changes to comply with 2007 ‘Historic Memory’ law, stalled since 2011
Six members of a select consensus committee charged with changing the names of some 150 Madrid streets, plazas and monuments glorifying heroes of Spain’s 1936 military coup, the Nationalist forces in the Spanish Civil War and the post-war Franco dictatorship were revealed Friday in a press conference presided over by the committee’s chairperson, former Socialist party (PSOE) Senator Francisca “Paca” Sauquillo, and attended by Madrid Mayor Manuel Carmena.
The six-member Comisión de la Memoria Histórica del Ayuntamiento de Madrid (Madrid Municipal Historic Memory Commission), established by Carmena and formed after consultation with all political parties in the city and autonomous community of Madrid, appears to be broad-based and includes includes a leading Spanish feminist, authorities on persecution of leftwing parties and movements under Franco, a Catholic priest priest familiar with church persecution during the Civil War and two former advisers of ex-Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.
Under the direction of Sauquillo, the committee is to proceed with a thorough examination of the names of all Madrid streets, plazas and monuments honoring the Franco-led forces in the Civil War and the 40-year dictatorship that ensued, and select new names in keeping with the terms of the 2007 Historic Memory law, passed under the Zapatero administration in 2007, but stalled since the conservative Partido Popular majority under current acting-Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy came to power in 2011.
► Read More in Spanish at EFE and El Español …
