The latest move by the Government to take the Francisco Franco National Foundation (FNFF) out of circulation is already underway. A step that does not surprise the executive president of the entity, Juan Chicharro. “It was obvious that a government cornered on all sides would soon use the Franco trump card”he says regarding the political situation in Moncloa, aware that the coalition government has long since set itself the goal of making the FNFF illegal, although it will ultimately opt for a plan to extinguish it. «We are used to it»says the retired Major General of the Marine Corps.
The PSOE has registered in the Congress of Deputies a bill to reform the Law Regulating the Right of Association that will allow the dissolution of the entity or any other that goes against the Law of Democratic Memory. It is a process that can be initiated by the State Attorney General’s Office and can only be completed by means of a court ruling.
The Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun (Sumar), already reported in June that his department had initiated the procedures for the extinction of the FNFF, under the law of October 2022, which expanded the assumptions of the 2007 rule, during the Government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Because his department is the one that “manages the board of trustees of foundations in this country.”
With this initiative, the socialists have complied with the seventh additional provision of the Law of Democratic Memory, which gave one year to modify the law of associations in this sense. The PSOE’s proposal consists of the inclusion of an additional provision to include as a cause for dissolution “the carrying out of activities that constitute an apology for Francoism.” The future norm will specify that this apology may occur either “praising the 1936 coup d’état or the subsequent dictatorship” either “exalting their leaders with contempt and humiliation of the dignity of the victims of the coup d’état, the Civil War or Francoism”or through “direct or indirect incitement to hatred or violence against them or because of their status as victims.”
The interpretation of whether or not there is this apology for the Franco regime or humiliation is left to the judgment of the State Attorney General’s Office, which will be responsible “the exercise of action in this type of process” but ultimately it will be a matter for the courts.
The PSOE’s bill makes it clear that the reason for dissolution will be applied regardless of the theoretical purposes and activities set out in the statutes and whether the association in question whether or not the obligation to register has been fulfilledsince this is intended for advertising purposes only.
It so happens that the Franco Foundation has twice modified its statutes to adjust them to the legal framework, in 2018, and on the last occasion precisely to establish that “it will ensure the utmost respect for victims of any significance in the period of Spanish history between 1931 and 1977, always avoiding contempt, discredit or humiliation of them or their families.”
«In the development of its activities and the fulfillment of its objectives, the Foundation has never humiliated any victim, so we should not feel concerned by the change», sources from the FNFF legal team assure this newspaper. «The reform goes in the same direction as what the General Council of the Judiciary has already warned about, which is that the apology of Francoism It should only merit legal reproach when accompanied by contempt or humiliation. to the victims, and that is not our case,” they conclude.
“We will defend ourselves in court,” says General Chicharro, who remains cautious. “If the rule of law were to survive, we would be very calm, but we already know that this is not the case”He also regrets the targeting of the FNFF. “I wonder why they forget about other foundations such as Largo Caballero’s – with abundant public subsidies – and many others of a Marxist nature,” he complains.