PP and Vox want to remove the names of Paco Rabal and Asunción Balaguer from a square and a cultural center in Alpedrete

2024-04-25 13:48:39

The city council of the Madrid town of Alpedrete, in the hands of PP and Vox, has initiated the file to change the name of Plaza Francisco Rabal and the Asunción Balaguer Culture House, which they intend to rename as Plaza de España y Centro La Cantera Cultural. The Plaza Francisco Rabal obtained this name with a Popular Party government, while the Asunción Balaguer House of Culture was renamed that way in 2015. Rabal and Balaguer were neighbors of Alpedrete for many years.

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After hearing the news, Teresa and Benito Rabal, the children of Paco Rabal and Asunción Balaguer, have expressed their anger and disagreement with the measure. “Given the intention of the Alpedrete City Council (Madrid) to eliminate the names of Francisco Rabal from a square and that of Asunción Balaguer from the Cultural Center located in that same place, we want to express our absolute rejection of this act framed within revanchism and revisionism history in which the extreme right is committed,” they begin by saying in a letter sent by the Union of Actors.

“There is no reason to support the city council’s decision, unless it is the well-known progressive thinking of both actors and their communist militancy, which never prevented them from sharing friendship and affection with those who thought differently. “None of the governments, regardless of their political color, ever showed them any animosity, but rather respect, admiration and various recognitions,” continues the text written by the children of the performers who underline the “greatest achievement” of their parents, who “They always had the affection and respect of the population.” “The same one that they keep in their memory. And it is for all this that we oppose this decision that only aims to attack Culture and tarnish the Historical Memory of our country,” they conclude.

The mayor of the town, Juan Rodríguez Fernández-Alfaro, has confirmed to the local media Más Vive that the file for the name change has been approved and that “in no case have political significance” caused the change. Déborah Alcaraz, councilor for Más Madrid in Alpedrete, has said on the social network X that the municipality already has a senior center called “Los Canteros” and the Cantero Museum. “Less changing names and more respecting the culture, heritage and illustrious neighbors of this municipality,” she said.

The PSOE in Alpedrete has also spoken out against this measure, which it has described as a “perverse proposal from the extreme right” and which it considers “only has one objective, that of strengthening and further damaging the image of a town,” according to picks up the local newspaper Adelante Sierra. For its part, the PCE in the Sierra de Guadarrama issued a statement yesterday denouncing the intentions of the City Council, which it considers “an attack against the cultural legacy of the Rabal family.” In addition, they have recalled that the bust of Francisco Rabal in the square that bears his name has been subject to vandalism on several occasions “by the neo-Nazi groups of Alpedrete.”