Almost not a week since the beginning of the year has the Government waited to give the starting signal to the plan it has prepared to mark the 50th anniversary of the death of Francisco Franco, which will be celebrated this November 20. At the highest level, with the presence of Pedro Sánchez, the Executive celebrates this Wednesday in Madrid the opening ceremony, in which the program of activities will be presented with which it seeks to commemorate “the return of freedom and democracy to our country.” and set the agenda at a time that is not easy for the coalition while the right attacks the initiative with their usual mantra: that talking about Franco reopens wounds and is a thing of the past.
The president was also in charge of announcing the measure on December 10, the day in honor of the victims of the Civil War and the dictatorship, which reveals the importance that the Government gives to the campaign, which is called ‘Spain in freedom’. The socialists insist these days that it is not about “celebrating the death of anyone” but rather commemorating “that the Spanish recovered their democratic hopes” and with the death of the dictator in 1975 “a long process of transformation began that led us to the Transition and a full democracy.”
With its sights set especially on young people and on explaining to them what the 40 years of Franco’s dictatorship meant for rights and freedoms, as well as banishing the myths that continue to survive about this historical period and about the Second Republic, the Government will deploy around a hundred events throughout 2025. In the absence of more details, the activities will be staggered throughout the year and will consist of “exhibitions, pedagogical work, ideas competitions, events…”, said the Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory Ángel Víctor Torres, who has promised to soon report on the budget allocated to the initiative.
Under his command will be the commissioner created by Royal Decree to coordinate its implementation – at the head will be the historian with experience in cultural management Carmina Gustrán – and who will be assisted by a scientific committee made up of experts, but little else is known about the plan. . What has already been put on the table is the frontal opposition of the right, who have criticized the initiative since it was announced a month ago, once again raising the accusation of warcivilism against the Government in the form of habitual rhetoric that is repeated: talking about Francoism is unnecessary, it reopens wounds and divides society while the left shows excessive fixation with this era.
Thus, while the Council of Ministers approved this Tuesday the creation of the organizations that will coordinate the project, the national spokesperson of the PP, Borja Sémper, assured that Sánchez begins this Wednesday “a journey to oppose a dead dictator”, and has taken advantage of to criticize his policy towards Venezuela and compare Franco and Nicolás Maduro, stating that what he should do is “reject living dictators.” Torres, for his part, has called on the popular party to “rectify” and “join the celebration of democracy,” but the party has already announced that it will not attend any event.
Neither will Vox, whose national spokesperson, José Antonio Fúster, has accused the Executive of “revanchism” and imposing “a single and decisive vision of the past.” The extreme right appeals “to freedom of thought” to justify the apology for the dictatorship, as deputy Manuel Mariscal did last November in Congress, who assured that Francoism “was a stage of reconstruction, progress and reconciliation.” “If someone wants to speak badly about Franco, let them speak. If someone wants to speak well, let them speak too,” added Fúster, who insists that the training’s goal is to “defend the freedom of each Spaniard to interpret the historical past of our nation” and “not force anyone to condemn their grandparents.”
“Take Franco for a walk”
In general, it is the argument that both groups defend in the communities in which they have joined forces to repeal historical memory laws and replace them with “concord” laws, something that has happened in Aragon, Cantabria and the Valencian Community and that has been appealed to the Constitutional Court by the Government.
Furthermore, the Vox spokesperson defends that Sánchez “takes Franco out for a walk every time he is cornered by the immigration or economic crisis or, now, the corruption cases.” The president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, already expressed herself along these lines at the time, charging against the Government for taking out what she called the “francocard (…) every time it is in trouble.” “Sánchez has gone crazy,” he said in December when the president announced the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the dictator’s death while announcing that the community he presides would not join in any activities.
The criticism of the popular ones has not stopped there. The leader of the party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, also attacked the initiative. “How lazy they are!” he said in the last speech of the year before the National Executive Committee. “They, to Spain with Franco, because they are already as old as him. And we, to Spain without Sánchez, which is Spain with a future. They, with their bitterness, return to the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s,” he said just before. He was joined by the party’s spokesperson in Congress, Miguel Tellado: “The President of the Government needs Franco more alive than ever,” he stated. “Anyone will remember that Franco died in bed on November 20, 1975. I don’t know what is celebrated on January 8, 2025. I suppose it was the phlebitis that the dictator suffered,” he ironized.
The importance of spreading History
Aside from the political objectives of the Sánchez Government, historians consulted by this means agree on the importance of delving into this historical stage and reflecting collectively on it. The historian Pablo Alcántara, author of The DGS. Franco’s palace of terror celebrates that “finally, after many years of waiting” these types of events are going to be held. “There are many unresolved problems that have to do with the Franco dictatorship or the Transition. History is not something hidden between four walls, but it influences the present and the construction of the future more than we believe,” he says.
What Alcántara does believe is that the Government should try to transcend “the figure of Franco himself” and focus on “reclaiming the anti-Franco struggle to recover freedoms and rights.” “It is true that Franco died in bed, but Francoism died in the street. The struggle of university students, workers, intellectuals, etc. “made it possible for rights to arrive after the death of the dictator and that is what must be valued,” points out the historian, who accuses the right of raising “denialist speeches” and regrets that the same ones to whom “it seems that we are annoying to talk about Franco and say that they are the wars of the grandfather insist on talking about the Catholic Monarchs or the conquest of America. “They are only interested in one type of History.”
Miriam Saqqa points out that “half a century after the death of the dictator, it is still crucial to deepen research on the Civil War and the dictatorship” because there are still topics that have not been studied. The author of Exhumations for God and for Spain argues that these new approaches and findings “must be disseminated widely” with the aim of “fostering a more complete and critical understanding of the past.”
In this scenario, one of the Government’s initiatives that promises to provoke the most controversy during the year begins and which will also have one of its main unknowns in the role of the Royal Family. King Felipe VI will not attend this first event “for agenda reasons,” although he has assured that he will participate in some of the scheduled activities. However, Minister Torres has not clarified whether Juan Carlos I will join: “The Presidency Cabinet is in permanent contact with the Royal Family and we will agree on what we do,” he limited himself to answering journalists’ questions.
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