Thousands on Monday paid their last respects to Mario Soares, widely seen as the father of Portugal’s modern-day democracy, as his funeral cortege was set to wind its way across the capital.
The founder of Portugal’s Socialist Party, who served as president from 1986-96, died in hospital on Saturday.
Monday was the start of three days of national mourning. The funeral cortege was to leave his family home in lisbon, where mourners laid red roses, the Socialist Party symbol, on a journey to the capital’s 16th century Hieronymite monastery.
It was there that Soares, then prime minister and soon-to-be president, signed Portugal’s treaty of accession to what was then the European Economic Community, a forerunner of the European Union.