Spain passes decree allowing Franco exhumation Spain's deputy prime minister Carmen Calvo says General Francisco Franco's exhumation is the 'quickest and preferred action to be taken for peace' as the government passes a decree allowing the exhumation of his remains from his vast mausoleum, a decision that divides Spaniards and has opened old wounds. General Franco ruled Spain with an iron fist from the end of the 1936-39 civil war until his death in 1975. SOUNDBITE