Spain Marks 50 Years Since Death Of Franco

This week the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, has been hosting 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 since becoming “Caudillo of Spain” at the end of the Spanish Civil War.

The war which lasted from 1936 – 1939 saw the overthrowing of the 2nd Republic and the loss of an estimated 250,000 lives.

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.