Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez presided on Wednesday over the first in a year-long series of events to mark 50 years since the death of the dictator Franco, with a warning that the far-right is once again ascending in Europe.
Franco died on 20 November 1975, aged 82, after ruling Spain with an iron fist for nearly four decades from 1939, having overthrown a democratic republic in a brutal civil war that killed hundreds of thousands.
Under the slogan ‘España en Libertad’ (‘Spain in Freedom’), the left-leaning coalition government led by socialist (PSOE) Sánchez commemorated the country’s transition to a parliamentary democracy at a packed auditorium in Madrid’s Reina Sofía Museum. The museum is home to Pablo Picasso’s Guernica painting, a famous symbol of Franco’s destruction and terror during the civil war.
During his speech, Sánchez said that around 100 events in schools, universities, museums and in the streets in 2025 would ‘showcase the great transformation achieved’ in the 50 years since Spain initiated its democratic transition following Franco’s death.
‘In 1975, at a time of great political uncertainty, Spanish society decided to opt for democracy and freedom,’ said Sánchez. ‘Spain decided to embark on a long and eventful process of political, institutional, social and economic transformation, which succeeded and turned us into the advanced, open, influential and tolerant country we are today. That is what we celebrate. That is what we are calling for.’
He also warned against the far-right being on the rise in Europe again.
‘You don’t have to be of a particular ideology, left, centre or right, to look with sadness, with great sadness and also with terror, at the dark years of Franco’s regime and fear that this regression will be repeated,’ he said.
‘Forgetting the mistakes of the past is the first step towards repeating them again,’ he added.
He recalled the ‘ironclad censorship’ that existed under Franco and other restrictions such as a ban on divorce and limits on the use of the regional Basque and Catalan languages.
However, neither King Felipe VI nor Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the leader of the main right-wing People’s Party (PP) opposition, attended the inauguration event at the museum on Wednesday – and the legacy of Franco is the cause of greater division than ever in Spain’s increasingly polarised politics.
The royal household said that the king could not attend the event in the Reina Sofia museum due to ‘diary clashes’.
Felipe VI’s absence was seen by the PSOE socialist party of Sánchez, however, as a politically motivated snub, according to media reports, although right-wing commentators viewed it as an attempt by the monarch to safeguard his political neutrality.
PP leader Feijóo believes the 50 year initiative is an opportunistic ploy by the minority coalition government to distract attention from its political and legal woes.
Corruption investigations are on-going against Sánchez’s wife and political allies, while the socialists have to negotiate painstakingly with an array of fringe and separatist parties to pass legislation.
The commemorations planned in schools, universities, museums and streets are the work of a government which ‘in its desperation constantly looks to the past’, Feijóo said.
The PSOE has hit back by pointing to the origins of the PP, born in 1989 as the successor to the Popular Alliance, founded in 1976 by a former Franco minister.
Far-right Vox, the third-largest force in parliament, will be snubbing the entire programme of events.
A spokesman for Vox, which does not disavow Franco and some of whose leaders have publicly vindicated him, described the commemoration as ‘absurd necrophilia’.
One of the party’s MPs recently said in parliament that Franco’s rule ‘was not a period of darkness, as this government makes out, rather a stage of reconstruction, progress and reconciliation’.
At the other end of the political spectrum, the hard-left Podemos group has called the commemorations a ‘facade’ to cover up the scant compensation for the dictatorship’s victims.
Sánchez passed a new law on historical memory in 2022 aiming to revive their memory, including the creation of a register of victims and the removal of Francoist symbols.
But the law has not tried or convicted any ex-Franco officials accused of crimes and who remain alive as they benefit from an amnesty approved during the transition, to the disappointment of survivors.
ALSO READ: Senate approves law that bans support for Franco and seeks to bring ‘justice’ to victims.
ALSO READ: Franco removed, but ‘Francoism still very present’ argue many.
ALSO READ: Initial forensic work begins to exhume bodies of 128 victims of Civil War.
No hace falta ser de izquierdas, de centro o de derechas para mirar con tristeza y terror los años oscuros del franquismo. Basta con ser demócratas.
Hace 50 años, España empezó a caminar hacia la libertad.
Recordemos la historia para evitar que los errores del pasado se repitan… pic.twitter.com/ZwuhWv2TA3
— Pedro Sánchez (@sanchezcastejon) January 8, 2025
Sign up for the FREE Weekly Newsletter from Spain in English.
Please support Spain in English with a donation.
Click here to get your business activity or services listed on our DIRECTORY.
Click here for further details on how to ADVERTISE with us.
