Spain: Far-right Activists Mark 40th Anniversary of General Franco's Death

Around 300 far-right supporters gathered on Orient Square in Madrid, Sunday, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the death of dictator General Francisco Franco. The former Spanish leader died on November 20, 1975, in hospital after suffering from a prolonged illness.

L'Espagne se refuse à juger le franquisme

Le général Francisco Franco

LE POINT: Malgré les pressions de l'Argentine et de l'ONU, les autorités espagnoles refusent de revoir la loi d'immunité qui protège les tortionnaires de la dictature.

"Non, non, non, c'est hors de question. Jamais nous ne permettrons que s'ouvre cette boîte de Pandore." La réaction de ce haut magistrat anonyme, dont s'est fait l'écho le quotidien El Confidencial.com, donne une bonne idée de l'intransigeance affichée ces jours-ci par les autorités espagnoles quant à la possibilité de juger des anciens nervis du franquisme. Ni le gouvernement conservateur dirigé par Mariano Rajoy ni le Parlement, et encore moins le Tribunal suprême n'envisagent cette hypothèse. Jusqu'à présent, depuis le retour de la démocratie à la fin des années 1970 (Franco est mort en 1975), jamais un dirigeant de la dictature espagnole - qui a duré quatre décennies - ne s'est assis sur le banc des accusés : aucun n'a été jugé. » | Le Point.fr | mardi 08 octobre 2013

Franco Was Monorchid
NAME: A new book claims the Spanish dictator, General Francisco Franco, may have had more in common with Adolf Hitler than previously known - having one testicle.

Gen Franco ruled Spain following the civil war until his death in 1975. Photo credit: BBC
Much like the Nazi leader, Franco's loss stemmed from an injury he suffered in battle, his doctor's granddaughter told the historian Jose Maria Zavala.

Franco was wounded in the lower abdomen at El Biutz, near Ceuta, in June 1916.

Biographers have long speculated this affected the reproductive organs of the dictator, who ruled from 1939 to 1975.

However, he did have a daughter, Carmen Franco y Polo, in 1926.

Last year, documents came to light containing an account by a medic who treated Hitler during the Battle of the Somme in 1916.

Dr Johan Jambor told his priest that Hitler had been injured in the abdomen and had lost a testicle. He said the first question Hitler had asked him was: "Will I be able to have children?" Spain's Franco 'Had One Testicle' >>> | Monday, May 18, 2009

Generalísimo Francisco Franco Is Still Dead – And His Statues Are Next: Socialist Government Banishes Fascist Icons Though Nostalgia for the Dictator Lives On
Photo of General Franco courtesy of Google Images
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: MADRID -- Every Nov. 20, for the past dozen years, Sinforiano Bezanilla has visited a pigeon-covered statue of Gen. Francisco Franco to pay homage to Europe's longest-serving fascist dictator.

This year, the sculpture won't be there. Acting on a law passed by Spain's Socialist government, authorities uprooted the statue of the Generalísimo in December from the city square of Santander in northern Spain and banished it to the local museum.

"The left is attempting to rewrite our country's history. They base it on a series of half-lies, half-truths and outright lies," says Mr. Bezanilla. The 44-year-old municipal worker was just 11 when Franco died. But he has read volumes on the former dictator's ideas and is nostalgic for his regime.

More than three decades after Franco died and 72 years after he seized power, Spain is on a controversial mission to expunge the many emblems of its painful past that are still on public display.

The Socialist government says the assorted icons of the Franco regime still on view -- fascist-style eagles, yokes and arrows -- have no place in modern Spain. A year ago, it passed a law to eliminate them.

But the drive -- part of a broader law aimed at redressing Franco-era injustices -- has raised hackles among conservatives who say Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is reopening wounds they say were healed after the dictator's death. >>> By Thomas Catan | Monday, March 2, 2009

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback & Hardback) – Free delivery >>>

The Spanish Civil War

Part 2
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback - UK)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback - UK)

Rumblings of Discontent in Spain
Photo courtesy of the BBC
BBC: A biting winter cold fills the Valley of the Fallen, a sprawling mausoleum to Spain's Civil War dead, carved out of granite rock.

Overhead, a towering 150-metre (492ft) cross casts a menacing shadow. But the chill is offset by an intense political heat.
"Viva Franco!" chants a large, mixed crowd. "One Spain, one flag! Immigrants out! Spain is Catholic, not Muslim!" Franco bill divides Spaniards (more) By Steve Kingstone

Mark Alexander

Zapatero Brings Division and Confrontation to Spanish Politics with a Law to Right Wrongs of the Franco Era
Photo of General Franco courtesy of The Telegraph

THE TELEGRAPH: A controversial law that will officially condemn the Franco dictatorship has been presented to parliament in the hope of healing the deep wounds that have divided Spain since the start of the civil war 70 years ago.

The Law of Historic Memory will, for the first time, acknowledge the victims of the fascist dictator, breaking a tacit agreement among most Spaniards not to dwell on the past, a move which paved the way for a smooth transition to democracy on the death of Franco in 1975.

The process to break that pacto de olvido [collective pact of forgetting] began with the arrival in 2004 of a socialist government under the prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, whose grandfather was shot by Franco's Nationalist troops in the war.

Last year, on the 70th anniversary of the start of the conflict, the government announced plans to introduce the Bill with the intention of addressing past wrongs.

Some 15 months later, amid fierce opposition from the Right-wing opposition, who have said it is "derisive" and "opens old wounds", the government has finally thrashed out a Bill that should win enough support from Congress to become law before the end of the year.

"We have reached an important moment," said Diego Lopez Garrido, the Socialist parliamentary spokesman. "The law will provide definitive reparation and recognition for those who suffered in the civil war." Spain's law 'to right wrongs' of Franco era (more) By Fiona Govan in Madrid

Mark Alexander