{"id":535465,"date":"2025-10-29T12:54:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T12:54:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/535465\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T12:54:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T12:54:15","slug":"spains-emeritus-king-juan-carlos-says-he-gave-the-people-democracy-it-is-my-legacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/535465\/","title":{"rendered":"Spain’s Emeritus King, Juan Carlos, says he gave the ‘people democracy, it is my legacy’"},"content":{"rendered":"

EXILED Emeritus King, Juan Carlos, has said that democracy is the \u2018legacy he left to Spain\u2019 in his memoir to be published in France next week.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The book\u2019s appearance will coincide with next month\u2019s 50th anniversary of the death of dictator General Francisco Franco, but will not be published in Spain until early December.<\/p>\n

The memoir also sees Juan Carlos expressing his desire for a good relationship with his son, King Felipe, and to see out his remaining years in Spain.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"KingJUAN CARLOS AT A REGATTA <\/strong><\/p>\n

In the book he says: \u201cI hope above all, during my life, to have a quiet retirement, to\u00a0renew a harmonious relationship with my son and, above all, to return to Spain, to my home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Juan Carlos gave two interviews plugging the memoir to French media, including one to the Le Figaro newspaper, where he talked about his part in restoring democracy after Franco\u2019s death- in November 1975.<\/p>\n

He said \u201cAfter forty years of dictatorship, I gave Spaniards a democracy that is still alive; it is my inheritance.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Emeritus King said that when he came to power, \u2018I had the compass, but not the plan\u2019 to take the country from the Franco dictatorship to the current regime.<\/p>\n

When the dictator died, Juan Carlos at the age of 37 technically became an \u2018absolute\u2019 monarch.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor two years, I had all the powers. The power to pardon or endorse the death penalty. I didn\u2019t have to, thank God, because at that point, if I had said no, the generals would have overthrown me,\u201d he commented.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hesitated to write this book, but little by little I realised that the children and grandchildren of my friends had no idea about Franco or the democratic transition that followed. And yet, the seventies have not been so long in the past!\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked by Le Point magazine if he had any advice to give to his grand-daughter Leonor and heir to the throne, he said: \u201cI hope that hat she has self-confidence, that she fulfils her duty with sympathy and kindness, and that she is the guarantor of respect for the Spanish Constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a comment about the current world situation, he concluded: \u201cIt is easier to destroy a democracy than to build it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Click here to read more Spain News<\/a> from The Olive Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EXILED Emeritus King, Juan Carlos, has said that democracy is the \u2018legacy he left to Spain\u2019 in his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[173034,2000,299,2348,89555,173035,603,18104,8626,104,173036,18106],"class_list":{"0":"post-535465","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-emeritus-king-juan-carlos","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-history","12":"tag-juan-carlos-memoir","13":"tag-legacy-of-democracy","14":"tag-national-news","15":"tag-news-spain","16":"tag-newspaper","17":"tag-spain","18":"tag-spanish-monarchy","19":"tag-the-olive-press"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115457560903608541","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}