ONLINE
\nMadrid
\nThe remains of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco are set to be moved from a vast mausoleum to a low-key grave, 44 years after his death.
\nThursday\u2019s long-awaited relocation will fulfil a key pledge of the socialist government, which said Spain should not continue to glorify a fascist who ruled the country for nearly four decades.
\nHis family unsuccessfully challenged the reburial in the courts.
\nThe Franco era continues to haunt Spain, now a robust democracy.
\nThe exhumation ceremony begins at 10:30 local time (08:30 GMT) on Thursday, and the remains will be moved by helicopter.
\nOnly a few people are being allowed to witness the event. They include the justice minister, an expert in forensics, a priest and 22 descendants of Francisco Franco. Media are excluded.
\nThe low-key ceremony will require a crane to lift a concrete slab weighing 1,500kg that covers the coffin. In total, the exhumation and re-burial will cost about \u20ac63,000 (\u00a354,000; $70,000), Spanish media report.
\nFranco is currently interred at the Valley of the Fallen, a basilica carved into a mountain about 50km (30 miles) from Madrid.
\nHe is being moved to the El Pardo state cemetery in Madrid, where is wife is buried.
\nThe family are not allowed to drape the national flag on his coffin.
\nThe Valley of the Fallen houses more than 30,000 dead from both sides of the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War, in which Franco\u2019s Nationalist forces defeated the Republican government.
\nIt was partly built by political prisoners, whom Franco\u2019s regime subjected to forced labour.
\nThe site has been a focal point for Franco supporters and a shrine for the far-right.
\nThe government of PM Pedro S\u00e1nchez wants the site to become \u201ca place of commemoration, remembrance and homage to the victims of the war\u201d. It sees the presence of Franco\u2019s remains there as an affront to a mature democracy.
\nThe burial place of Franco has been the subject of fierce debate for decades and Spaniards remain divided over whether his remains should be moved, newspaper polls suggest.
\nAn El Mundo poll this month said 43% supported the move, with 32.5% against and the rest undecided.
\nMany descendants of Franco\u2019s victims are happy that action is finally being taken.
\n\u201cThe idea that people who were killed by Franco\u2019s troops are buried together with Franco, it\u2019s very absurd, and they\u2019re still glorifying him as if he were the saviour of Spain,\u201d Silvia Navarro, whose great uncle died in 1936
\nFranco\u2019s grandson, Francisco Franco y Martinez-Bordiu, said he was furious with the government.
\n\u201cI feel a great deal of rage because [the government] has used something as cowardly as digging up a corpse as propaganda, and political publicity to win a handful of votes before an election,\u201d he told
\nUnlike in Mussolini\u2019s Italy and Nazi Germany, defeated in World War Two, Spain\u2019s transition to democracy in 1975 was more gradual.
\nThough democracy is well established now, many believe the country has never faced up to its fascist past. There was an unwritten \u201cpact of forgetting\u201d during the transition.
\nAn Amnesty Law adopted in 1977 prevents any criminal investigation into the Franco years.
\nStatues of Franco were removed and many streets were renamed, to erase obvious signs of the fascist past.
\nA Historical Memory Law, passed in 2007 by the socialist government at the time, recognised the war victims on both sides and provided some help for surviving victims of Franco\u2019s dictatorship and their families.
\nBut the work to locate and rebury thousands of civil war dead has been slow and controversial.
\nMore than 100,000 victims of the conflict, and the ferocious repression carried out afterwards, are still missing.
\n* Born in Galicia to a military family, became the youngest general in Spain in the 1920s
\n* Following the election of the leftist Popular Front in 1936, Franco and other generals launched a revolt, which sparked a three-year civil war
\n* Helped by Nazi Germany and Mussolini\u2019s Italy, Franco won the war in 1939 and established a dictatorship, proclaiming himself head of state – \u201cEl Caudillo\u201d
\n* Franco kept a tight grip on power until his death in 1975, after which Spain made a transition to democracy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ONLINE Madrid The remains of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco are set to be moved from a vast mausoleum to a low-key grave, 44 years after his death. Thursday\u2019s long-awaited relocation will fulfil a key pledge of the socialist government, which said Spain should not continue to glorify a fascist who ruled the country for nearly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-89429","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n