The Guardian view on General Franco’s exhumation: a Spanish lesson in memory | Editorial

Eighty years after the civil war, Spain has faced up to the delicate but necessary task of ending its official veneration of the country’s fascist leaderBriefly, fog threatened to disrupt General Francisco Franco’s final, unscheduled journey . Then the sky cleared and a helicopter was able to carry the dictator’s coffin away from the Valley of the Fallen, Europe’s most unloved war memorial. After 16 months of wrangling over Franco’s exhumation, the ceremonies of dep