Body of Spain’s fascist party founder to be removed from basilica

Family will rebury José Antonio Primo de Rivera in Madrid cemetery to pre-empt state exhumation

Nearly four years after Franco’s remains were removed from the hulking Valley of the Fallen mausoleum outside Madrid, those of José Antonio Primo de Rivera, the founder of the Falangist party, are to be exhumed from the same site and reburied in a cemetery in the Spanish capital.

The removal of Primo de Rivera’s remains follows the introduction last year of the Socialist-led government’s Historical Memory law, which aims to bring “justice, reparation and dignity” to the victims of the Spanish civil war and subsequent dictatorship.