Changing times, and time, in Spain

More than four decades after the death of General Franco, Spaniards are now coming to grips with the dictator’s dark legacy

Try and get a haircut on any afternoon in the Spanish capital, buy a postage stamp, or do banking across mainland Spain, and you’re out of luck once the clock hits 2pm. It’s siesta time, an age-old tradition that sees many businesses and government services shut down. And while businesses do generally re-open around 4pm, the same can’t be said for the government and banking sectors.

The split day for many workers means that prime-time television doesn’t start until 10pm, while late-night dining is a way of life for many Spanish families. Now, the Spanish government is seriously weighing changing the time in mainland Spain. By March 2018, when the clocks across Europe are adjusted for summertime, Spain plans to move from Central European Time (CET) to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). In effect, the move would put mainland Spain back in sync with both Portugal and the Spanish Canary Islands, off the shores of Morocco, which use GMT.

Yes, there are economic reasons why the hour’s difference is needed — workers would be able to make an earlier start in the day and productivity would be increased — but the change has a lot to do with history. The times are literally — and figuratively — changing in Spain.

As it stands now, Spain is the most westerly nation in Europe on CET, the zone that stretches as far east as the Ukrainian border and includes the Balkan states. But westerly Spain is in the same broad vertical geographical segment as the British Isles and Portugal on GMT. Its use of CET is an anachronism dating back to 1940 and the Second World War.

With the stormtroopers of Nazi Germany having swept across France, in Spain General Francisco Franco was in power after a bloody three-year civil war from 1936 to 1939. His Nationalist forces drew on support from Nazi Germany and its Condor Legions for victory over the Republicans, and he ordered Spain, which was on GMT up to that point, to switch to CET. The clocks in Berlin and in Madrid would be in sync, just as the political thinking between the two fascist and military leaders was in sync.

That the government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is now actively pursuing time-zone change shows that finally Spain is dealing with its past and the Franco legacy following his death in 1975.

In 1940, as General Franco was switching the clocks to Berlin time, he also ordered that a huge national monument and mausoleum be constructed to establish “a place of rest and meditation to perpetuate the memory of those who fell in our glorious Crusade”. The result is Valle de los Caidos (Valley of the Fallen), a huge basilica hewn out of a rocky mountain some 50 kilometres northwest of the capital in the Guadarama hills. It’s a vast complex, covering more than 13.6 square kilometres and surrounded by carefully manicured pine forests.

Valle de los Caidos took years to complete. Depending on which estimate you believe, many of the political prisoners used as forced labour on the project up to its completion in 1958 died: The Franco regime said 15; its opponents claim 27,000. Either way, the 150-metre tall granite cross that towers over the site can be seen from many parts of the capital. And at the centre of Valle de los Caidos is General Franco’s tomb. It’s there that his ageing supporters still gather annually, honouring him with straight right arm fascist salutes.

Theoretical decision

For most Spaniards, Valle de los Caidos is a reminder of the bitter legacy of a dictator who had his citizens imprisoned in concentration camps and who ruled their nation with the same ideology as that of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. Germany and Italy, however, saw their fascist dictators killed in 1945, and Spain had to endure his rule for another 30 years.

Last week, the Spanish parliament took the theoretical decision to exhume General Franco’s body and remove it from Valle de los Caidos — theoretical because there’s little likelihood of that decision being carried out for now. With Franco gone more than four decades and Civil War scars fading after the passing of nearly 80 years, Spaniards are now dealing with his legacy — one that includes an estimated 50,000 political opponents who died under his regime. An amnesty law passed in 1977 prevented many of his officials from ever being prosecuted for their deeds, and few are left to defend the dictator and his legacy.

The generational change of Spain’s monarchy has also facilitated a shift in attitudes. King Felipe VI took over in June 2014 from his father, King Juan Carlos I, who had ruled since the restoration of the monarchy in 1978.

While Juan Carlos is credited with easing the post-Franco transition to democracy and seeing down an attempted coup in 1981, he was also hand-picked by the dictator himself, and his presence was a reassuring one for Francoistas after the general’s death.

Now, at last, Spaniards feel they can finally move on from the Franco legacy. And changing the time is one such sign of changing times.