The Government has set April 24 as the date on which the exhumation of José Antonio Primo de Rivera from inside the Basilica of the Valley of the Fallen will proceed, as confirmed by Executive sources to this newspaper. The remains of the founder of the Falange are buried in a tomb inside the temple a few meters from where Francisco Franco was buried, whose body was also exhumed and relocated to the Mingorrubio (El Pardo) cemetery in October 2019.
The departure of the founder of the Falange from Cuelgamuros, as from now on the Valley of the Fallen will be officially called, is a consequence of the definitive approval of the Democratic Memory Law, which prevents Primo de Rivera from continuing to be buried in that place.
The family of José Antonio Primo de Rivera had gone ahead of the Government and had begun the process to exhume his mortal remains from the Valley of the Fallen. Thus, his descendants had requested the different administrative and legal procedures to do so and avoid “a public exhibition” and “humiliation” by the Executive, as they stated in a statement six months ago.
The budget for the removal of the granite slab under which the remains of Primo de Rivera lie and its replacement by six black marble slabs amounts to 8,630 euros, according to the municipal act that authorized the works, reports Efe
A few days after the definitive approval of the Law of Democratic Memory and before its entry into force, the relatives of Primo de Rivera contacted the abbot of the Valley of the Fallen and the General Directorate of Public Health of the Community of Madrid and requested to the City Council of San Lorenzo de El Escorial the necessary permits to take the remains of the founder of the Falange to the San Isidro cemetery in Madrid.
As the nephews explained in a statement, they did it to comply with their uncle’s will to be buried in a sacred cemetery and in accordance with the Catholic rite. His request was met by the San Lorenzo de El Escorial City Council last month, when it approved the planning license for the removal of the tombstone.
The date chosen for the exhumation coincides with the day that will mark the 120th anniversary of the birth in Madrid of the founder of the Falange.
Primo de Rivera was shot by Republican combatants, during the Civil War, on November 20, 1936, and after various vicissitudes his remains were taken to the Valley of the Fallen in 1959, after the inauguration of the compound that Francisco Franco ordered to be built, presided over by a gigantic stone cross.
His tomb is the only individual that remains in the mausoleum after the transfer of Franco, since the more than 33,000 buried, combatants from both sides of the Civil War, who rest in the columbariums outside the temple are in collective locations.
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