We previously referred to the date Bárbara Rey’s son photographed his mother with Juan Carlos I: 1994. The king was 56 years old. Exactly the same ones that his son and successor, Felipe VI, has today, of whom it is also sometimes said that he is finally “a good Bourbon”.
Barbara and the Rogue King
The photos of the emeritus with Bárbara Rey do not bring big news. They add, in any case, a touch of sordidness (the 11-year-old boy behind the camera, the mother gathering evidence to ensure the profitability of the company, the king of the time with his usual and constitutional irresponsibility) to a already known story. .
The date of the images is of some interest: 1994. Juan Carlos I was 56 years old and immensely popular. What did Spanish society know about its king? Little and everything is good: that he had stopped a coup attempt and supported democracy, that he enjoyed international prestige, that he was handsome, friendly and “modern” and, through rumors and knowing nudges, that he had girlfriends here and there. . The latter, in the Spain of the previous generation, added grace to the figure of the monarch.
What did the press know? Something more, just a little more, than society as a whole. José María Izquierdo, a veteran of various editorial offices, spoke about it here. The affair was more than proven, because Juan Carlos I was not very discreet. An example: the apartment in Barcelona where he saw one of his lovers was in the same building where Antonio Franco, director of The Catalan newspaper.
The rest are just rumors. I had heard about the cents that the monarch charged as commission on each barrel of Arab oil imported by Spain, but those who knew the subject well (Francisco Fernández Ordóñez or Roberto Centeno, for example) limited themselves to blinking and , on the other hand, On the other hand, there was no way to obtain documentary evidence. Journalistic directors also did not encourage the investigation of Juan Carlos I, because then as now, the most solvent press, the one that tries to tell the truth, was obliged to tell the type of truth that his audience demanded. And the public, in general, had no interest in knowing ugly things about the monarch. As simple as that.
Out of commercial interest, the press protected Juan Carlos I until, at the height of the Great Crisis (2008), he dared to publish the photo of the dead elephant. And the cake was gone.
It is worth remembering that when Francisco Franco appointed Juan Carlos de Borbón as his successor in 1969, the Bourbon dynasty, and the monarchy in general, lacked any prestige. The former king, Alphonse: between 50 and 150 million euros today, according to different estimates. Among the previous kings (the long Habsburg regency of María Cristina, the short-lived Alfonso
Juan Carlos I seemed to change the disastrous trajectory of the Bourbons. After a hesitant beginning, during which very few people believed in its longevity, its popularity began to increase dramatically. His public image was shaped by three events: the 1977 elections, the approval of the Constitution in 1978 and the failed coup d’état of February 23, 1981. He was the king of democracy. In the end, a Bourbon turned out to be good.
While waiting for what we will be able to know when the context of these events is no longer buried under the law of official secrecy (if that ever happens), it is difficult to discuss the contribution of Juan Carlos I to democratization and modernization of Spain. It is also difficult to dispute the Francoist origin of his throne (cents in oil since 1973), the protection guaranteed to him by the Constitution, the institutional protection from which he benefited (the leaders of the CNI acting as pimps at the expense of the taxpayer ) and the furious agitation devoted to him by almost the entire press have contributed to making man feel above good and evil.
We previously referred to the date Bárbara Rey’s son photographed his mother with Juan Carlos I: 1994. The king was 56 years old. Exactly the same ones that his son and successor, Felipe VI, has today, of whom it is also sometimes said that he is finally “a good Bourbon”. We don’t know exactly how popular the current monarch is (the Center for Sociological Research has excluded him from its surveys for a decade) and there is no reliable evidence that he is stealing or carrying out attacks. , as there was none on the subject. the father in 1994. What would happen if well-founded suspicions arose against Felipe VI? What would the mainstream media do? I want to think they would act differently than they did 30 years ago. But I’m not sure.
