The Francos remove their belongings from the Pazo de Meirás

The Franco family has begun the removal of their belongings from the Pazo de Meirás, located in the A Coruña municipality of Sada. There are more than 400 pieces, including furniture and various decorative elements, that have not been claimed by the State and after a judicial process to settle which assets were owned by the dictator’s heirs and which were owned by the state.

This transfer also occurs after the Justice has ordered the registration of said property in the name of the State after it ceased to be the property of the Francos. It makes this decision based on the actions carried out by the State Attorney’s Office once the Supreme Court confirmed that the property belonged to the state and not to the dictator’s family.

This decision also derives from the Supreme Court’s confirmation that the Pazo de Meirás belongs to the State, concluding that since 1938 it was intended for the service of the Head of State, dismissing the appeals filed by the Martínez-Bordiú Franco brothers.

This was reported by the Civil Chamber of the TS in a ruling in which it stated — unanimously — that its residents could not possess the property as owners, at least until the 1990s, when all types of services were no longer provided by the administration, and the legal period of 30 years to be able to acquire the property had not elapsed.

AN “EXPOLIATION” FOR THE CRMH

For its part, the Commission for the Recovery of Historical Memory (CRMH) of A Coruña has called this initiative “looting” by the Franco family and having been done with the “complicity” of the State and the “total passivity” of the Xunta.

In a statement, the association has criticized the “poor management” of the central government in defending the public ownership of the Pazo’s movable property, causing the Francos to “loot” all types of pieces “that go far beyond elements of a personal nature or assets that have a connection with the Pazo after the death of the dictator Franco, within the list of more than 400 elements that were not demanded by the State.”

Specifically, the CRMH insists that the Francos are removing assets from Meirás linked to the dictator’s era “as a result of a process in which these assets were not properly defended by the State.”

“The State unilaterally suspends once again the visits scheduled for this Friday at the Pazo de Meirás, so that the company hired by the Francos can continue with the work of disassembling and extracting the assets. All of this with the passivity of the Xunta,” they lamented.

For all this, it asks the Ministry of Democratic Memory to give the “timely” explanations and to assume the political responsibilities that correspond to it.

It is also asked whether the Xunta has complied with its obligations of control, supervision and prior authorization of these works, which even involved the installation of scaffolding for the dismantling of elements.