Luis Figo takes a stand against commemorations of the death of dictator Franco. The former Real Madrid and FC Barcelona player protested against the government’s memorial projects at a time when Spain is just waking up from the terrible deadly floods that hit the Valencia region.
According to Figo, the fiftieth anniversary of Franco’s death is not intended to be the subject of official ceremonies. “What a shame that all the expenses that are going to be incurred for the celebration of a death in the history of Spain 50 years ago are not used for all the victims in Valencia, so that they can come out of this hell as quickly as possible, wrote the 2000 Ballon d’or on X, ex-Twitter. The biggest problem today is the living, not the dead. »
The socialist government will appreciate, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez in the first place. The latter has several times explained his wish to pay tribute to those who allowed the kingdom to become a “prosperous democracy”. But this initiative deeply divides the political class.
The right-wing opposition has therefore decided to boycott the first of the ceremonies organized this Wednesday, believing that the wounds are still far from being healed almost half a century after the end of Francoism. Like the Popular Party, the far-right Vox party, the third largest force in the country with 33 deputies, also shunned the ceremony.
-Thirty-six years of dictatorship
But criticism of Mr. Sánchez’s initiative has also come from the far left, which sees it as a “deception” to hide the fact that Spain, according to it, has not done much by way of reparations for victims of the dictatorship.
At the end of a civil war which lasted three years (1936-1939) and left several hundred thousand dead, General Franco, then an ally of the Nazi regime, governed Spain with an iron fist for 36 years.
However, was Figo the most legitimate person to hold this position? Internet users doubt it. The former star was ordered in 2012 to pay 2.4 million euros to the Spanish Treasury for tax fraud. During the Covid-19 crisis, the former star of the Portuguese selection had already expressed his anti-government beliefs. The attacking midfielder had shared goalkeeper Pepe Reina’s tweet in support of the far-right VOX demonstration against health measures.
