Desk used by civil war president for resignation letter to return to Spain

A DESK used by the last president of the Spanish Republic to sign his resignation letter following his defeat in the Civil War is set to be returned to Spain.

France is set to present Spain’s Secretary of State for Global Spain Irene Lozano with Manuel Azaña’s desk when she visits Collonges-sous-Saleve today (Thursday).

The government’s Global Spain department said: “Spain’s democratic memory is an element of its reputation abroad.”

Azaña spent the first months of his exile in the French town following the defeat of the Second Republican government at the hands of former dictator Francisco Franco in 1939.

He was previously Spain’s prime minister from 1931 to 1933 and took office as president shortly after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in May 1936. He died in Montauban in France on November 3 1940.