The Franco family lost its legal battle against the state for ownership of the assets that the dictator’s family accumulated for decades inside the Pazo de Meirás. The judgment, rendered by a Madrid court and subject to appeal, confirms “in its entirety” the lawsuit brought by the General Administration of State and National Heritage, joined by the Xunta de Galicia and the City Hall of Sada. The judgment handed down on November 7 puts an end to the claims of the dictator’s family to take possession of the treasures that the Pazo de Meirás kept inside and which the plaintiff administrations considered as a set of objects with varied characteristics accumulated over the years . result of the looting.
This is a list of 564 objects that the Franco family intended to keep in their possession and which Judge Roberto Fernández Muñoz is now returning to the public treasury. This decision comes on top of the historic ruling in September 2020 that forced the dictator’s relatives to return the mansion they occupied for decades as a regular vacation spot in the town of Sada in La Coruña. After this first conviction, the dictator’s family began another battle to recover everything that lived inside and part of the gardens of the property. It is a diverse list of paintings, books, sculptures and objects of all kinds, many of which already lived in Meirás when its tenant was the writer Emilia Pardo Bazán.
The judgment explains in 89 pages the reasons why each of the reasons put forward by Franco’s heirs to claim their rights to the assets in dispute is rejected. A court in La Coruña had already banned them in July 2022 from taking anything from the property, as seemed to be the initial intention of the dictator’s heirs.
