Spain government approves legal amendments for exhumation of Gen. Franco

Spain’s center-left government approved Friday legal amendments ensuring that the remains of former dictator Gen. Francisco Franco will be dug up and removed from a controversial national mausoleum honoring its civil war dead.

The minority Socialist government is certain that parliament will endorse the amendments, probably in a debate next month, deputy prime minister Carmen Calvo told a news conference.

The amendments to Spain’s Historical Memory Law of 2007 grant the government power to exhume Franco’s body. That change aims to thwart legal efforts by Franco’s descendants and supporters to block the exhumation in the courts.