Calle de Carlos Maurrás

The City Council opened this street in 1953, just after paseo de la Castellana had been extended northward, and dedicated it to the French writer Charles Maurras, who had died the year before. The Spanish spelling, Maurrás, fixes a name that in France never appeared on any street. Maurras (1868-1952) was a poet, literary critic and Provençal essayist before he was a politician. He lost his hearing as an adolescent, and in time became the ideologue of Action Française, the monarchist and authoritarian movement that championed an “integral nationalism” tinged with virulent antisemitism. The French Academy elected him a member in 1938; in 1945, after his conviction, his seat fell vacant. A court sentenced him to life imprisonment and to “national degradation” for his support of the Vichy regime. Francoism took him as an intellectual reference and raised him this tribute running off the Castellana. Since 1993 there have been calls to change the name.