Statues, street names and other symbols honoring former dictator Gen. Francisco Franco would be eliminated under a bill that seeks to make amends to victims of its civil war, the ruling Socialist Party said Thursday.The new legislation would force central, local and regional governments to strip away publicly displayed symbols honoring Franco and his 40-year rule.
If passed, the law would be the first to specifically condemn the Franco regime.
Lawmakers did this in 2002 but in a nonbinding motion that had no practical effect.
The legislation would also set the Spanish government on a collision course with the Roman Catholic Church.
Besides forcing the central, local and regional governments to strip away such publicly displayed symbols, it says private entities with property exhibiting such symbols risk losing state aid or subsidies.
The government finances the Roman Catholic church by paying the salaries of religion teachers in state-subsidized schools and allowing Spaniards to earmark a small amount of their income tax for the church.
Some Catholic churches in Spain bear plaques with names of pro-Franco fighters who died in the 1936-39 war and the phrase "fallen for God and for Spain," and they would be forced to strip away these markings.
The clause on Franco-era symbols was added to the bill Wednesday as the legislation heads toward debate and a vote expected on Oct. 30. One more commission meeting is scheduled for next week, but it is a formality.
The ruling party has mustered the support of six smaller parties — enough for passage — but not of the main opposition conservative Popular Party and leftist Catalan nationalists.
After Franco died in 1975, Spain's transition to democracy included a tacit agreement among political parties to put the war and the Franco era behind them in the interest of unity and rebuilding.
Both sides in the conflict — Franco's Nationalists and the Republicans of the leftist government he ousted — committed atrocities. But no war crimes trials were held.
For Spanish lawmakers, addressing this dark chapter of Spanish history has been largely taboo.
But Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has made it a priority, and his party is rushing to get the bill passed before the current legislature ends.
General elections are scheduled for March 2008.
This new bill also declares "illegitimate" the summary trials the regime staged against people suspected of opposing it, although it does not annul them outright, as some parties demand.
It will earmark government money for a campaign under way for the past decade to find unmarked mass graves of people executed by the Nationalist side in the war and give them proper burials.
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