Spanish justice minister Dolores Delgado was booed this Saturday in Paris, at a tribute in memory of La Nueve, the first brigade to reach the centre of the French capital on August 24th, 1944, in the liberation of the city from the Nazis, composed essentially of Spanish Republicans who had gone into exile after their country's Civil War.
During her address, Delgado received a whistling by the descendants of exiled Spanish Republicans, who were calling for the Spanish government to give greater recognition to the victims of the Franco regime, and also consider that Spain's 2007 Law of Historical Memory is not strong enough. The minister's audience grew steadily noisier until eventually her speech was interrupted by chants of "Spain is Republican."
The moment when descendants of the Spanish Republicans interrupted Spanish minister Delgado / Photo: @324
In response to this situation, Delgado tried to win back listeners by asserting that she was "convinced that the soldiers who entered Paris 75 years ago putting their lives on the line to defend the values of liberty, would today defend the Spanish Constitution of 1978." However, her statements further inflamed the protests, and calm didn't return until the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, rose to the dais.
This episode comes a day after a controversial tweet from the Spanish justice ministry celebrating the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the French capital, which was accused of attempting to "whitewash Francoism."