The Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, Ángel Víctor Torres, paid tribute today, in Montauban (France), to Manuel Azaña, in the week in which the 85th anniversary of his death is celebrated. Torres has inaugurated the 20th Manuel Azaña Conference, in the Ancien Collège of the French town, and has made a floral offering in the tomb of the last president of the Second Republic.
“His project for Spain was that of a Republic that educated, guaranteed rights, distributed opportunities and respected the diversity of its peoples,” said the minister, who was accompanied by the Secretary of State for Democratic Memory, Fernando Martínez; the Spanish Ambassador to France, Victorio Redondo; the Consul General of Spain in Toulouse, Manuel Larrotcha; the Deputy Mayor of Montauban, Philippe Becade; and the President of the Présence Association of Manuel Azaña, Bruno Vargas; among others.
After the tribute to Azaña, the minister has unveiled the plaque that recognizes the former Nazi concentration camp of Sepfonds, known as Camp de Judes, as a Place of Democratic Memory. Torres recalled that thousands of Spanish reactionaries were interned in this place, in subhuman conditions, as happened with other similar spaces in France, after the Spanish Republican exile of 1939.
“Let this Place of Remembrance be, at the same time, school and warning: school for those who must learn to protect their rights; warning for those who use exclusion as a political resource,” the minister concluded.