She is called to rule Spain in honor of her father. Princess Leonor de Borbón y Ortiz, heir to the throne, celebrates this Tuesday her 18th birthday and for this occasion takes the oath of office on the Spanish Constitution during a ceremony organized at 11 am.
The ceremony, which will be broadcast on giant screens in the center of Madrid, will take place before the meeting of the two houses of parliament in an extraordinary session in the presence of the main representatives of the state.
The ceremony of officially conferring on her the title of heiress.
Once this oath is taken, the heiress to the Spanish crown will be able to constitutionally succeed her father, King Philip VI, at the head of state and armed forces. Leonor will receive the highest civilian honor, the Grand Collar of the Order of Carlos III, since his father received it at the age of 18.
A sign of a break with the past: his grandfather, King Juan Carlos I, will not attend the oath of office in parliament. However, according to the Spanish press, he will attend a private celebration that will follow the ceremony.
“I understand very well and am aware of what my duty is and what responsibilities my duties entail,” the Princess of Asturias, her official title, said on October 20. A rite of passage prepared over a long period of time, which was also experienced by his grandfather in 1969, appointed as his successor by dictator Francisco Franco, six years before his death, and then in 1986 by his father Felipe VI.
The heiress who might not have existed
Leonor is the eldest daughter of Philip VI, king since 2014, and Queen Letizia, a former journalist for Spanish public television RTVE. She was born on October 31, 2005, a year and a half after her parents’ wedding. In April 2007, the couple had their second daughter, Sofia.
At her birth, it was not clear whether Leonor was heir to the throne: unlike other European monarchies (such as the United Kingdom), male primogeniture was not abolished in Spain. If she had a brother, he would have been called upon to succeed his father, although he had an older sister. But from the moment Felipe VI ascended the throne, it became clear to all Spaniards that their future monarch was indeed Leonora.
Military and multilingual training
Her first appearance in official monarchy activities dates back to 2010, when she was four and a half years old, when the royal family hosted the Spanish football team after its World Cup victory.
Since her teens, she has regularly appeared alongside her parents at royal events. In particular, she attends the annual Princess of Asturias Award, Spain’s highest honor, which recognizes international work in about ten fields.
In addition to her native language, Leonor was trained in three more official languages of the kingdom: Basque, Catalan and Galician. She also speaks English and French, but also has some knowledge of Chinese and Arabic, El Pais emphasizes. Most notably, in 2019, she gave one of her first official speeches in Spanish, Catalan, English and Arabic.
Until 2021, she was educated at a private school in Madrid, Colegio Santa María de los Rosales, then joined the International Baccalaureate program in Wales (UK), from which she graduated in May 2023. Since August, Leonor has undergone three years of military training, which has become mandatory for any Spanish heir to the post of future head of the armed forces.
Source: Le Parisien
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