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Updated 4.42pm
SPANISH KING JUAN Carlos will abdicate in favour of his son Prince Felipe, the nation announced this morning, ending a 39-year reign that ushered in democracy but was was later battered by royal scandals.
The 76-year-old monarch, crowned in November 1975 after the death of General Francisco Franco, is stepping down dogged by health woes and with his popularity deeply eroded by scandals swirling around him and his family.
“His Majesty King Juan Carlos has just informed me of his desire to renounce the throne and begin the process of succession,” Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said in an impromptu announcement to the media.
He hands over the throne to 46-year-old Felipe de Borbon, a 1.98-metre (six foot six inches) tall former Olympic yachtsman, who has been relatively unscathed by the scandals that battered the rest of the family.
Frequently smiling but more reserved than his father, Felipe had long suffered from comparisons with the easy-going Juan Carlos, who played a historic role in Spain’s post-dictatorship transition.
But Juan Carlos’s image took a blow after he took a luxury elephant-hunting safari to Botswana in April 2012 as his subjects struggled in a recession, with one in four people unemployed.
Further damaging the royal family’s standing, a judge opened a corruption investigation in 2010 centred on former Olympic handball player Inaki Urdangarin, the husband of his youngest daughter, Cristina, who has also been accused of involvement.
At the same time, Felipe’s approval rating has risen.
Felipe wed former television presenter Letizia Ortiz in a glittering ceremony in Madrid’s Almudena Cathedral in 2004 after several previous romantic dalliances, including one with a Norwegian lingerie model.
Ortiz, a 41-year-old divorcee, was the first commoner to come in line for the Spanish throne.
Commenting on the announcement today, Irish President Michael D Higgins paid tribute to King Juan Carlos who he said “succeeded in uniting the Spanish people behind the democratic principles underlying the country’s Constitution”. He wished Crown Prince Felipe every success in his new role.
- © AFP 2014 with additional reporting by Michelle Hennessy.
First published 10.09am
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I can’t think of anything worse than watching ‘I Feel Pretty’
@Stephen:
Being in a relationship with Amy Schumer?
@Stephen:
Removing a A 130-tonne ‘monster fatberg’ from London sewers with an ice pick?
@Scott Peterson: Aren’t they basically the same thing?
@Thought Criminal:
I’m taking the 5th on that :-)
@Scott Peterson: oh look at the funny men who cry when someone gives back. I’m sure Amy is crying into her millions.
@Deborah Behan: You should give comedy a go, Deborah. You’re as funny as Amy Schumer.
@Deborah Behan:
Poor Amy. A prisoner of a patriarchal body-image imposed by the worlds of media and fashion.
@Thought Criminal:
Maybe Deborah could steal a few Dave Attell jokes to get her career started.
@Stephen: I just can’t warm to Amy Schumer, there’s something very off putting about her for me, I think she tries too hard or something, can’t quite put my finger on it
@Scott Peterson: id say she likes to fart in the 69 position.
@Scott Peterson: fairly obvious Scott and Thought Criminal are the same person setting up naff jokes for the other to reply to, to make it look they’re “bantering”..thats a bit sad tbh!
@Austin hickey: sure doesn’t everyone?
@Del Bear: Definitely. There’s no possible way two people could be having the craic.
@Deborah Behan: I agree. However, having seen the movie…it is absolute tosh. Well done to get got getting rich of little talent. She is not the first and won t be the last.
Rumour has it Amy Schumer bumped her head and woke up the next morning thinking she was funny.
@Scott Peterson: Her sketch on birth control is brillant http://www.comedycentral.co.uk/inside-amy-schumer/videos/birth-control
@Pale Blue Dot: You’re easily impressed.
I wouldn’t go see an Amy Schumer movie if I was paid to go. Cannot understand how she is so popular. Theres hope for anyone “making it if she can
@thomas patrick: Take the money and don’t go. Tell them that there was an ethnic minority family sitting in your reserved seats.
@thomas patrick: go on then. I’ll wait.
Avenger infinity war again.
@Eddie Mc Keown: my son went today…he didn’t like the end.
@Jackie Carvill Caruana: No one did.
I said “Are you F%^^ing kidding me” at the end.
But I’m going again this weekend! :)
@Tricia G: More fool you
@I’m not wavy gravy: Avengers movies are like McDonald’s. You look forward to them as a treat more than you should, and then invariably feel you’ve let yourself down by the time you’ve consumed one, and have been left entirely unsatisfied.
Worst selection of movies ever? Who pitches these movies and gets funding for them??
The Young Karl Marx:
“Somehow the spectacle of fiercely angry people talking about ideas becomes absorbing and even gripping.”
I’m predicting this one will be a big hit with the Journal commentariat.
@Scott Peterson: Ah you’d miss Wally all the same.
@Jane:
A good dose of Marxism is what this country needs right now.
@Scott Peterson: He seen the unfairness in the workplace and how people lives are controlled by the moneymen to keep them in debt. some things never change.
I couldn’t sit through an amy schumer movie will pass on that !
The avengers again!
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