It was a democratic anomaly that José Antonio Primo de Rivera continued until last Monday buried in the Valley of the Fallen. The exhumation is inopportune in time, not because it was carried out just a few days before a decisive electoral campaign (it was the family who chose the date), but because it should have been carried out decades ago. Some nostalgic people say that removing the dead and “desecrating graves” is enough. The argument is respectable, but an important nuance should be added: those names on tombstones should never occupy prominent places.

Primo’s exhumation was broadcast on social networks, as was the case with Franco’s. This time there was no helicopter or funeral officiated by a son of Tejero in Mingorrubio, but a private and discreet family act.

But discretion was not exactly the attribute of the around 200 Falangists who gathered at the gate of the San Isidro cemetery in Madrid to do what their relatives did not want. The successors of Primo de Rivera? Some traitors, lamented the gangly nostalgics.

It was not a pleasant Monday for the Falangists. The group was large. Right arms raised, “up Spain”. Some retired but also many of working age. “José Antonio, present”, read the banner. Maybe they took the day off from work. It was a sunny Monday for Falangism. Many more will come. Long faces. “Criminal Government”. Where will they pilgrimage now every November 20?

The Falangists broke the police cordon. Strain. shoves. “José Antonio Primo-de-Rivera”, they chanted. More straight arms up. Riot police stopped them. The Face in the Sun. But is this legal? Justice must now determine whether there was a hate crime. His faces are clearly identifiable and the videos are on Twitter and TikTok.

On Monday in the sun of the Falangists, he slipped into the political fray. For the left, justice has been done. On the right there are nuances. Vox says that “our history” is being desecrated. For the Genoa PP there is electoralism for Moncloa. For Ayuso, “from Zapatero the civil war feeling is encouraged to end the Transition.”

When the debate focuses on exhuming remains, the maxim should be: everyone has the right to know where their relatives are. It’s called repair. Because there are still people who want to bury their loved ones in a decent place and cannot.