Francisco franco, caudillo of Spain, must be turning in his grave. Some 32 years after his death, a Socialist government is pushing through a law to honour the dictator's victims, as well as those of the civil war that brought him to power. Final amendments to the "historical memory" law were made by a parliamentary committee on October 17th. After years of deliberations and much angry debate, the law seems likely to be approved on October 31st.rnThis should be a moment of great personal satisfaction for the prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. The new law was one of his campaign pledges in 2004. His own grandfather, a captain in the Spanish army, was a civil-war victim. He stayed loyal to the Republican government after the 1936 military rebellion and, like thousands of other loyalists captured over the next three years, was shot.
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