The Franco family millions

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http://www.elpais.com/articulo/english/The/Franco/family/millions/elpepueng/20111121elpeng_2/Ten

On November 20, 1975, the Francos lost their hold on power but held on to something even more important: their wealth. Following the death of the dictator and the dismantling of the system he built, his once-sought-after relatives became social lepers. It was the worst thing that could happen to one in a country that favored social arrivistes. Struck hard by the sudden loss of privileges, some members of the Franco clan felt victimized; others faded discreetly into the background, and a few individuals took on the role of provocateurs, unable to admit to themselves that democracy was treating them infinitely better than Franco had ever treated democracy.

Until the day she died, Franco's widow Carmen Polo received a pension that was higher than the salaries of the Spanish prime ministers Adolfo Suárez and Felipe González. Her only daughter and her son-in-law were able to use their diplomatic passport until it expired in 1986. King Juan Carlos I awarded them with a new title of nobility: the duchy of Franco. The tax agency never investigated their accounts. They were not forced into exile, nor was their fortune seized, as it was in the case of the Dominican dictator Leónidas Trujillo after his assassination in 1961. Not even the assets that Franco had received as a head of state and, in good faith, should have reverted to the state, were ever claimed by Spain's new rulers. In contrast to the fate of Pinochet's descendants, who were prosecuted for misappropriation of funds in 2007, nobody ever bothered the Francos - not even when they toyed with the extreme right and headed public acts of nostalgia every November 20. The Francos slipped through one of the cracks left open by the desire for national reconciliation that defined Spain's transition to democracy.

This year was the first in which the anniversary of Franco's death was not observed with acts of hero worship. They were forbidden so as not to interfere with election day. Yet the traditional memorial mass was held, as usual, at the Valley of the Fallen, though without the presence of his daughter, who was reportedly too ill to attend. Carmen Franco Polo is the head of a major real-estate empire originally woven by what was once Spain's leading family. It would be hard to make a complete list of her assets - opacity is a key trait of the wealthy. Carmen Franco presides several companies officially headquartered in her own home, on Madrid's Calle Hermanos Bécquer; these firms manage apartment rentals and parking lots, and carry out diverse financial and property transactions; some were created in democratic times, others are survivors of the Franco regime.


A portrait of Franco with his grandchildren - from left to right: Jaime, Carmen, Arancha (with back to camera), Mariola and Cristóbal.- GABRIEL TIZÓN