The removal coincided with the 40th anniversary of a coup attempt by Franco supporters, a government source told CNN.
There were 14 votes in favor, 10 abstentions and one against from the right-wing Vox party, he said.
“Starting today, Melilla will restore its dignity and justice,” said Gloria Rojas, Melilla vice president and member of the Socialist Party, according to a PSOE tweet.
The bronze statue was created by sculptor Enrique Novo and erected in 1978, three years after Franco’s death, the government source said.
It commemorated his defense of Melilla in 1921, during the Rif War against the Berber tribes of Morocco’s Rif Mountains, according to the
source.
The statue was moved in 2005 but remained in public until Tuesday, the last statue of Franco standing on Spanish soil, he added.
It has now been saved, the source said, but the deletion is permanent.
Tuesday was the anniversary of the 1981 coup attempt carried out by military officers who held lawmakers hostage in Madrid for 18 hours. The attempt took place just six years after Franco’s death, marking Spain’s transition to democracy.
Franco ruled Spain from the end of the 1930s and thousands of executions were carried out by his nationalist regime during the Spanish Civil War and in the years that followed.
Franco’s Spain was officially neutral during World War II, but supported the Axis powers of Germany and Italy.
After the war, he was seen by many as the last surviving fascist dictator and was exiled by the United Nations. His regime was partially rehabilitated during the Cold War because of Franco’s staunch anti-communist ideology.
In 2007, the Spanish government passed the Law of Historical Memory, which formally condemns the Franco regime. Symbols associated with Franco must be removed from view, the law provides.
In October 2019, Franco’s remains were exhumed from the large mausoleum where he was buried in 1975 at the nearby Mingorrubio State Cemetery in El Pardo, where his wife is buried.
The dig was a major policy promise made by Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez when he took power in 2018.
Franco’s family and his far-right supporters opposed the plan, and the family unsuccessfully appealed to the court.