Spain to Exhume Franco From Monument He Had Built

The Spanish Parliament voted on Thursday to exhume the remains of Francisco Franco, the former dictator, from the underground basilica that he had built near Madrid, intensifying a debate over his legacy that continues 43 years after his death.

The vote paves the way for the body to be moved before the end of the year, but it will not end disagreements about Franco’s place in history, nor will it resolve the question of what to do with his burial site, known as the Valley of the Fallen.

Franco had the site built, in part with forced labor, to honor those who “fell for God and Spain” in the Spanish Civil War, and it became one of Europe’s largest mass graves, with the remains of at least 33,000 people. Most had fought for Franco in the war, which lasted from 1936 to 1939, but the monument also contains the bones of many of his Republican opponents, dumped there in anonymity.