Sánchez and Macron legalize dual Spanish-French nationality in Montauban

The historical, sentimental and daily ties between Spain and France were staged on Monday in Montauban, the small French city where Manuel Azaña, the last president of the Second Spanish Republic, died on November 3, 1940.

Pedro Sánchez and Emmanuel Macron gathered together at Azana's grave and laid a bouquet of flowers.

It was the final point of a summit that had, as a more concrete result, the signing by the Spanish and French presidents of an agreement that legalizes dual nationality.

The meeting was marked, among other issues, by the discomfort caused by the decision of Paris to cut the roads that connect both countries in the Pyrenees due to the fight against irregular immigration and terrorism.

In the

adopted in Montauban, France and Spain undertake to guarantee the "coordination and proportionality" of any border closure between the two countries.

Macron, in a press conference with Sánchez, celebrated the symbolism of Montauban as a common place in the history and memory of Spain and France.

"Here we consecrate a very strong historical, political and human bond between our two countries," he said.

The human bond that Macron spoke of has a translation in the agreement that will allow dual French-Spanish nationality without having to renounce one of the two.

Binationality was accepted, although it was not covered by Spanish law.

Now it will be fully legal.

"In the time of globalization, dear Emmanuel, there are two ways of conceiving identities," explained Sánchez.

Identity populisms conceive identity as something closed.

The thought that represents us conceives identity not as a dilemma, one thing or the other, but as an

”.

The historical link is symbolized by Azaña, whose remains, according to the Spanish president, should not be repatriated to Spain but should remain where they are buried, since the last president of the Republic "is already part of the shared history between Spain and France."

After the defeat in the Civil War, he crossed the Pyrenees and, pursued by Franco's agents and Nazi Germany, ended up demoralized and seriously ill in Montauban.

"To the only thing that I aspire to have a few hundred people in the world who can attest that I was not a bandit," he told a visitor shortly before he died, according to the historian Santos Juliá in his biography

.

Sánchez and Macron's homage enshrines the memory of Azaña and the half million refugees who left Spain in 1939 at the center of Franco-Spanish friendship, and elevates Montauban to the rank of the unofficial capital of this common history.