Spain: Unveiling of headless Franco statue sparks violence and anger in Barcelona

Scuffles broke out as scores of people rallied in Barcelona to protest against the erection of a statue of Former Spanish dictator General Francisco Franco in the city's El Born district, Monday.
The temporary statue and concurrent exhibition, titled "Franco, Victory, Republic. Impunity and Urban Space," were put on display at the Born Centre for Culture and Memory in a bid to spark conversation about the erstwhile Spanish dictator. However, the statue, which inexplicably lost its head while in storage during 2013, has caused anger among locals, leading to fist fights during its unveiling.
Alongside objections to the alleged normalisation and glorification of Franco's reign from 1939 to 1975, protesters in El Born, a stronghold of the Catalan independence movement, were particularly angry due to the dictator's attacks on Catalan identity. Aside from more furtive shutdowns of the independence movement, Franco also banned Catalonia's National Day, the region's celebration of the end of the siege of Barcelona in 1714.