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Why does Madrid now have a street dedicated to General Millán Astray?

2021-08-27T13:56:05.047Z


Chronology of the controversial name change of the Latina district road: could the sentence that forces the name change be appealed? Maintain its previous name? How did you get here?


General Millán Astray Street, this Wednesday in Madrid.Juan Carlos Hidalgo / EFE

Seven kilometers from Puerta del Sol, the hundreds of residents of Calle Maestra Justa Freire in Madrid got up this Tuesday with a visit from two City Council workers.

The workers went to the La Latina district to change the name of the street.

Without much noise, the two men removed the label of Maestra Justa Freire ―a pioneer woman in Spanish education― and replaced the one that was three years ago, that of the propagandist general of Francoism José Millán Astray, according to a ruling by the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid on May 13.

Why has the City Council led by the popular José Luis Martínez-Almeida ordered this change in the street on Tuesday, August 24? Could that sentence be appealed? Keep the teacher's name? How did it get there? so far?

More information

  • General Millán Astray returns to Madrid's street map in the middle of August

Everything was born in 2007. That year, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (PSOE) approved the law of historical memory. A regulation that obliges all city councils in Spain to remove shields, badges, plaques and other objects such as commemorative mentions of exaltation, personal or collective, of the military uprising of the Civil War and the repression of the dictatorship. For ten years, from 2007 to 2017, Madrid broke that law. In that period, governed by the PP, there was no change in the street map of the capital of Spain. It was not the only city. The law does not sanction for this breach. Moreover, there are still 533 urban roads in different municipalities whose names praise General Francisco Franco, honor the military uprising that he undertook or commemorate the repression suffered by the Spanish between 1936 and 1975,according to the latest data offered by the Government in 2020. For this reason, the new historical memory bill approved in July includes for the first time a sanctioning regime for these cases and thus accelerate the change of roads.

In Madrid, in May 2017, the then mayor Manuela Carmena created an internal historical memory commission to change the street map of Francoist names. The commission was created at the will of Carmena, since the law does not indicate that it is a prerequisite to modify the change of the roads. The councilor brought together different personalities of different ideologies, such as the writer Andrés Trapiello - awarded this year by the PP and Ciudadanos City Council -, the philosopher Amelia Valcárcel, the priest Santos Urías or the historian and academic Octavio Ruiz-Manjón. The president of this group was the lawyer and former socialist senator Francisca Sauquillo. All the parties, except the PP, which abstained, voted in favor of this commission.

The writer Trapiello remembered this experience with pleasure in a report published in EL PAÍS on March 28: “It was one of the most satisfying personal and intellectual experiences of my life. It was a group of people of all ideologies agreeing on 95% of the decisions. We understood from the first moment that we were being called to apply a law with many deficiencies, and we tried to do so from rationality, not from emotion, as these matters are too often dealt with ”.

The commission ultimately agreed to change the name of 52 streets. Days later, Carmena took the resolution of the commission to another municipal plenary session. All the parties ―Mas Madrid, PSOE and Ciudadanos― voted in favor of the change, except for the PP, which abstained again with a very gruff tone: “Some of us want [those of the PP] to bury us in the Valley of the Fallen, but the PP is buried in the cemeteries with Gregorio Ordóñez and Miguel Ángel Blanco, for defending freedom even of those who call us Franco supporters, "said the then popular councilor Pedro Corral.

MADRID, 08/25/2021.- The Madrid City Council has restored the license plates of Calle General Millán Astray, whose name had been changed to Maestra Justa Freire, in application of a judgment of the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid that dissociated to the founder of the Spanish Legion of the Law of Historical Memory. EFE / Juan Carlos Hidalgo Juan Carlos Hidalgo / EFE

The recommendation of the municipal advisory body was based on the general principle of recovering the old names of the streets, especially when they were still remembered and named by the neighbors. If that was not the case, the commissioner's proposal contemplated the tribute to illustrious women, to pedagogical institutions or cultural figures who contributed to enhance the intangible heritage in difficult times, and to politicians who were characterized by the defense of conciliatory positions. The names of these new streets were proposed by them. Political groups did not enter. For this reason, the name of Calle Millán Astray was changed to that of Professor Justa Freire, a pioneer in Spanish education and reprisal during the dictatorship.

After the approval in plenary session of the street change, the Francisco Franco Foundation denounced the case in court. Some time later, the Millán Astray Patriotic Platform also joined with another resource. The report made by the commissioner on the technical motives of the Millán Astray street had very few pages. A judge then said that these explanations were insufficient and that the limits set by the law of historical memory were not being met.

Up to six magistrates of the capital received complaints from individuals and associations that asked to interrupt as soon as possible that change of the street map in at least six of the 52 proposed streets.

The arguments that all put forward is that some of the streets mentioned were not affected by the law of historical memory, as argued by the Millán Astray foundation.

Another judge indicated that this would be very annoying for the neighbors: "It would create a state of confusion that we have to avoid."

Franco and Millán Astray, during the founding act of the Legion.

Faced with these judicial resources, Carmena decided to wait for the opinion of the judges on the precautionary measures requested. A year later, on April 24, 2018, the Superior Court of Justice lifted the suspension ordered in the first instance. The magistrates understood that the procedure carried out by the City Council was the correct one, but they did not enter to assess the name of the streets. The 52 roads of the capital that had a Francoist past began to change.

However, justice knocked on the doors again.

A month after this judicial support for Carmena, another judge said that there were not enough arguments to change the name of Calle de Millán Astray.

The magistrate, unlike the Supreme Court, did enter into the street name change.

He argued, as has happened in other town councils in Spain, that the name change based on the historical memory law was not sufficiently justified.

The City Council appealed, as in the rest of the cases.

The judgment of May

The judgment of the Supreme Court came in May of this year. It forced the Madrid City Council to replace the name of the also founder of Radio Nacional de España, as a propaganda mechanism for the regime, in the Latina district. In the car it was argued that the Galician soldier, founder of the Legion, did not participate directly in the uprising of the troops that brought Francisco Franco to power through the Civil War. Nor, added the sentence, can it be shown that he participated in military actions during the war or in the repression exercised during the dictatorship. “He does not have sufficient motivation,” the car reads, “since in the year 1923-1924 the general had a place in Madrid that was later recognized on the street for his intervention in the Philippine War,for having been the founder of the legion […] recognitions that have nothing to do with the military exaltation of the military uprising of the Civil War and the Dictatorship ”.

This sentence, which the popular City Council of Almeida (PP) clings to to change the name, could have been appealed because it was not yet firm. “It was not done because it was so clear that the appeal made no sense. It made evident the lack of rigor of the previous government team ”, explain sources close to the mayor. The legal team that endorsed this thesis are officials who approved their position by opposition.

Could the street name still have been kept? Yes. The ordinance that regulates name changes in Madrid is very clear. The government team and the district boards of each neighborhood can propose the name change of any Madrid street. Moreover, during these two years of the Government of PP and Citizens, a square and two streets that previously had other names have been changed. The Plaza Saucedal, in Tres Olivos, was changed to Plaza de Torcuato Fernández Miranda. And three-quarters of Orión Street in Barajas was modified by Tomás Serrano Street, a former councilor of the PP now deceased.

“The only way to stop modifying the street was by resorting to it. And they didn't want to because they don't want to give in to Vox, "says More Madrid councilor Miguel Montejo.

"

I understand that this right did not want to enter into historical terms," ​​underlines the mayor of the PSOE and spokesman for the Historical Memory Ramón Silva, "but hundreds of residents are going to experience a change of street again. In addition, this denigrates a prisoner teacher, who was prohibited from exercising her work and whose only crime was training students. It could have been changed by ordinary means ”.

The Santiago Abascal party pressured Almeida in the last plenary session of June so that Millán Astray returned to the street as soon as possible.

The PP responded that yes, it was going to change this year.

The popular decided to remove the plaque of the teacher Justa Freire this Tuesday in August, probably thinking that the media noise would be less.

José Luis Martínez Almeida has been silent these days.

He has gone hiking to do the Camino de Santiago.

Manuela Carmena, however, already expressed her opinion a couple of years ago when, as mayor, she received the first judicial setback: "Perhaps we could have changed the streets that we considered convenient without invoking the Law of Historical Memory."

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2021-08-27

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