At 2am yesterday General Francisco Franco was hoisted on to a flat-bed truck after a low-key operation by the ministry of public works, and within moments Madrid's last public monument to the Spanish dictatorship was gone.
The manner of the 7-metre high bronze statue's departure reflects the extent to which the dictator still divides the Spanish people, 30 years after his death. The statue had stood outside the environment ministry in the Plaza San Juan de la Cruz since 1959, despite the establishment of democracy in 1978.
On Wednesday afternoon workmen began to erect scaffolding around it. A sign warned that there would be no parking nearby overnight, because a lorry would need access to remove part of the air conditioning unit from another ministry nearby.
When around midnight workmen began to chip away at the fixings at the base of the statue the local police realised that it was not the air conditioning that the lorry would be taking away.
Work was halted while they called their superiors.
A spokesman for the ministry of public works said yesterday that the job was conducted at night to avoid disrupting traffic. But the tactics did not avert a conservative backlash.
About 300 protesters, young and old, chanted "Franco, Franco," and gave stiff-armed fascist salutes in the square yesterday. More than 70% of those taking part in a right wing radio station survey said that the statue should have been left where it was.