Members of the political party Endavant in the Catalonia city of Reus have spent some of their Saturday morning taking a walk round their town - making several stops to remove the pro-Franco symbols which are still quite common, particularly on buildings constructed under the dictatorship.
The Endavant-OSAN group, part of the pro-independence CUP party, removed a total of nine signs this morning, all featuring the "yoke and arrows" which were the symbols of the Falange and the Movimiento Nacional, the fascist political organizations of the Franco regime. Group members believe that about 150 of these signs still remain in their city, a fact they describe as "shameful", demanding that the Reus city council should act to remove the rest. Endavant activists also claims that such activities are the only tool they have to thwart the rise of the extreme right and to transform society. They have set down the date of October 1st to continue removing the fascist signs.
Photo: ACN
About twenty people turned up at the group's 10am rendezvous and, screwdrivers and ladders in hand, they visited about twenty locations where Franco-era plaques had been thought to be hung, although some of those included in their itinerary had already been removed. However, they also located others that did not appear in the records of the democratic memorial of Catalonia. In the end, after about two hours, nine "yoke and arrows" signs put up by Franco's housing ministry had been removed.
Endavant member Ricard Aragonès called it "shameful" that "victims of the Franco era walk through the streets 40 years after the end of the dictatorship and see Francoist symbols." He said that they had decided to act for "dignity" and in order to "avoid violations of the Law of Historical Memory." "The removal of the plaques is necessary because an appropriate clean-up has not yet been performed", said Aragonès, adding that their activism also counteracted "the rise of the extreme right in the world, in Europe, in the Spanish state and in the Catalan countries". "We need to empower people and provide anti-fascist tools to show that struggle is the only way to transform and change society," he argued.
Today's action was the group's second day of plaque removals in Reus. The organizers plan to continue their campaign, particularly on important dates, such as October 1st, or January 15th, which will mark 81 years since Franco's troops occupied the southern Catalan city in 1938.
On its morning walk, the group also took time to honour the union leader Cipriano Martos who was assassinated by the Civil Guard in Reus in 1973, in the last years of the Franco era. The group has hung a commemorative plaque to Martos on Carrer Pubill Oriol, where he lived for a while. "It's our duty to honour this person who lost his life in a terrible way in our city. The municipal government only gives visibility to the major historical figures, we want to celebrate the memory of others, who are part of the popular struggle," said Mariona Quadrada, a member of the CUP assembly.