This discovery is part of a joint project between the Ministry of Culture and the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA). The initiative has enabled the digitization of nearly 180,000 refugee files, providing a crucial database to identify those who crossed the French border between 1939 and 1944.

Based on this extensive documentation, historian Rubens Ascanio has prepared a preliminary study shedding light on the Canarian presence in the republican exile. Although Canarias' footprint in this exile was less prominent than that of other regions, the study confirms its existence, while emphasizing that the research is still incomplete, with many names yet to be identified.

The profile of the identified Canarian exiles shows an overwhelming majority of men, accounting for over 96% of cases, and a clear working-class origin. Among them are day laborers, sailors, and unskilled workers, though professionals such as doctors, lawyers, and journalists also appear. Many were linked to trade unions like the CNT and UGT, or political parties such as the PSOE and PCE, which explains their persecution and subsequent flight.

The investigation also reveals that some of these exiles continued their struggle outside Spain, participating in the French Resistance during the Nazi occupation. Others were deported to concentration camps such as Mauthausen and Gusen, where mortality rates were particularly high.

The project promoters call for public collaboration to complete the identities, trajectories, and family ties of these exiles. In many cases, descendants settled in Latin American countries, adding complexity to the historical reconstruction. The digitization of these archives not only holds invaluable historical worth but also offers many Canarian families the opportunity to recover a part of their past that remained fragmented or silenced for decades.