Sánchez warns of the “totalitarian” impulse that Musk leads in the event for Franco’s death: “It can happen again”

Do not take for granted freedom and democracy or the rights achieved in the last 50 years. With that message, Pedro Sánchez has given the starting signal to the hundred events scheduled throughout 2025 under the motto “50 years of freedom” and which commemorates the end of the dictatorship due to the death of Franco in 1975.

“The fascism that we thought we left behind is now the third political force in Europe, the reactionary international led by the richest man on the planet attacks our institutions, incites hatred and openly calls to support the heirs of Nazism in Germany,” he said. stated the President of the Government in reference to Elon Musk, before asking Spanish society for an explicit commitment to democratic values ​​and not taking any achievements for granted.

“Freedom is never permanently achieved, it is something that can be lost, as it was lost a century ago. It can happen again,” he warned. In the fight to defend freedoms, Sánchez has asked for the commitment of all political actors regardless of their ideology, in clear reference to the absence of the main opposition party. “You don’t have to be progressive, you just have to be a Democrat.”

“We must strengthen democracy in our country first of all, being brave. To delve into rights and freedoms. To combat lies and misinformation, which are the main weapon of the enemies of democracy. And not forget the mistakes of the past,” he asked.

Without references to the king, the president has vindicated the path taken by Spain in freedom. “Fifty years ago Spain began the path to freedom. We managed to deploy one of the most prosperous democracies on the planet. “No one coming from so far back has come as far and in such a short time as democratic Spain,” he highlighted.

Before the president’s intervention, the journalist Soledad Gallego-Díaz and the philosopher and writer Javier Padilla participated in a colloquium. The historic journalist of The Country He recalled that “the first opportunity that Spaniards had to freely say what they thought was a loud no to Francoism. And he added: ”Most of the things that young people do today would be prohibited in my youth. No matter how many defects they find in democracy, it is the only regime that allows them to express themselves.”