MADRID: More than 35 years after the death of Francisco Franco, Spain's government is mulling whether to move the dictator's remains from the vast mausoleum he had built with forced labour.

The Valley of the Fallen, an underground tomb complex outside Madrid where he is buried, was constructed on Franco's orders between 1940 and 1958.

As well as Franco's own remains, historians estimate the mass graves contain those of between 40,000 and 60,000 of his supporters and the Republicans who opposed them in Spain's 1936-39 Civil War, which ended with Franco in power.

But for many Spaniards, the memorial site — carved into the side of a mountain in part through the forced labour of thousands of political prisoners — is their country's most divisive and potent reminder of the Franco era.

The Spanish government in 2007 passed a law that banned political rallies there.

It now aims to make the site, which is topped by a 150-metre high granite cross that is visible for miles around, a neutral place in memory of all the victims of the Franco era.

It has set up a committee of experts, which now has five months to decide on the future of the mausoleum, and on the sensitive issue of whether to move Franco's remains from the site.

But the task appears difficult.

“If the committee decides in favour, the government will negotiate with the family of Franco on the transfer of his remains to the family mausoleum of Pardo”, near Madrid, “where his widow is buried,” the minister in charge of 'historical memory', Ramon Jauregui, said Monday.

For Franco's daughter, Carmen Franco, 85, moving her father's remains is out of the question.

“The family's view is that he must stay there,” she said.

The head of the association for the defence of The Valley of the Fallen, Pablo Linares, agreed that remains “cannot be transferred without the approval of the families. They must stay where they are.”

But Jauregui said the government “has the authority to take such decisions” even without the approval of the families.

The Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory, which supports Franco-era victims, has for years called for the transfer of the dictator's remains.

“We cannot tolerate paying taxes for the tomb of someone who was responsible for the suffering of so many families,” said its president, Emilio Silva.

“But the government should have taken the decision itself, without hiding behind a committee,” he said.

The mausoleum “should become a site for the memory of the political slaves who built this stone monster,” said Silva.

“This is the world upside down. While in central Europe, concentration camps are in memory of the victims, the Valley of the Fallen is left to the executioners.”

Historian Julian Casanova, an expert on the period, said he opposes any exhumation of Franco's remains.

The mausoleum must “remain as it is because history wanted it that way”.

“It could become a site for information, for explanation of history, which recounts the truth about all the bodies that are buried there after having been taken there in secret,” the history professor at Zaragoza University said.

Many of the bodies there were first buried elsewhere after the civil war and then moved to the Valley of the Fallen in order to fill up the space in the mausoleum, which was initially conceived as a resting place just for those from the winning side.