Francoist Spain

Establishment

On 1 October 1936, Franco was formally recognised as Caudillo of Spain—the Spanish equivalent of the Italian Duce and the German Führer—by the Junta de Defensa Nacional (National Defense Junta), which governed the territories occupied by the Nationalists. In April 1937, Franco assumed control of the Falange Española de las JONS, then led by Manuel Hedilla, who had succeeded José Antonio Primo de Rivera, who was executed in November 1936 by the Republican government. He merged it with the Carlist Comunión Tradicionalista to form the Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las JONS. The sole legal party of Francoist Spain, it was the main component of the Movimiento Nacional (National Movement). The Falangists were concentrated at the local government and grassroots level, entrusted with harnessing the Civil War's momentum of mass mobilisation through their auxiliaries and trade unions by collecting denunciations of enemy residents and recruiting workers into the trade unions. The new government was a one-party authoritarian dictatorship explicitly modeled after Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany albeit with its own unique Spanish characteristics.

Although Falangists held some important posts, the Falange's role in the regime remained limited and carefully delimited by Franco, with major areas of power retained by other institutions, especially the Catholic Church and the Army. However, the Falange remained the sole party.

The Francoists took control of the entirety of Spain through a comprehensive and methodical war of attrition (guerra de desgaste) which involved the imprisonment and executions of Spaniards found guilty of supporting the values promoted by the Republic: regional autonomy, liberal or social democracy, free elections, socialist leanings, and women's rights, including the vote. The right-wing considered these "enemy elements" to comprise an "anti-Spain" that was the product of Bolsheviks and a "Judeo-Masonic conspiracy". The latter allegation pre-dated Falangism, having evolved after the Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula from the Islamic Moors. Falangist founder Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera had a more tolerant position than the National Socialists in Germany. This was influenced by the small size of the Jewish community in Spain at the time that did not favor the development of strong antisemitism, despite its history. Primo de Rivera saw the solution to the "Jewish problem" in Spain as simple: the conversion of Jews to Catholicism.

With the end of the Spanish Civil War, according to the regime's own figures there were more than 270,000 men and women held in prisons and some 500,000 had fled into exile. Large numbers of those captured were returned to Spain or interned in Nazi concentration camps as "stateless enemies". Between six and seven thousand exiles from Spain died in Mauthausen. It has been estimated that more than 200,000 Spaniards died in the first years of the dictatorship from 1940 to 1942 as a result of political persecution, hunger and disease related to the conflict.

Government

After Franco's victory in 1939, the Falange was declared the sole legally sanctioned political party in Spain and it asserted itself as the main component of the National Movement. In a state of emergency-like status, Franco ruled with, on paper, more power than any Spanish leader before or since. He was not even required to consult his cabinet for most legislation. According to historian Stanley G. Payne, Franco had more day-to-day power than Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin possessed at the respective heights of their power. Payne noted that Hitler and Stalin at least maintained rubber-stamp parliaments, while Franco dispensed with even that formality in the early years of his rule. According to Payne, the lack of even a rubber-stamp parliament made Franco's government "the most purely arbitrary in the world." The 100-member National Council of the Movement served as a makeshift legislature until the passing of the organic law of 1942 and the Ley Constitutiva de las Cortes (Constituent Law of the Cortes) the same year, which established the Cortes Españolas.

The Organic Law made the executive government ultimately responsible for passing all laws, while defining the Cortes as a purely advisory body elected by neither direct nor universal suffrage. The Cortes had no power over government spending, and the government was not responsible to it: ministers were appointed and dismissed by Franco alone as the "Chief" of state and government. The Ley del Referendum Nacional (Law of the National Referendum), passed in 1945 approved for all "fundamental laws" to be approved by a popular referendum, in which only the heads of families could vote. Local municipal councils were appointed similarly by heads of families and local corporations through local municipal elections while mayors were appointed by the government. It was thus one of the most centralised countries in Europe and certainly the most centralised in Western Europe following the fall of the Portuguese Estado Novo in the Carnation Revolution.

The referendum law was used twice during Franco's rule—in 1947, when a referendum revived the Spanish monarchy with Franco as de facto regent for life with sole right to appoint his successor; and in 1966, another referendum was held to approve a new "organic law", or constitution, supposedly limiting and clearly defining Franco's powers as well as formally creating the modern office of Prime Minister of Spain. By delaying the issue of republic versus monarchy for his 36-year dictatorship and by refusing to take up the throne himself in 1947, Franco sought to antagonise neither the monarchical Carlists (who preferred the restoration of a Bourbon) nor the republican "old shirts" (original Falangists). Franco ignored the claim to the throne of Infante Juan, Count of Barcelona, son of the last king, Alfonso XIII, who designated himself as his heir; Franco found him too liberal. Instead, in 1969, Franco selected the young Juan Carlos of Bourbon, son of Infante Juan, as his officially designated heir to the throne, shortly after his 30th birthday (the minimum age required under the Law of Succession).

Armed forces

During the first year of peace, Franco drastically reduced the size of the Spanish Army—from almost one million at the end of the Civil War to 250,000 in early 1940, with most soldiers two-year conscripts. Concerns about the international situation, Spain's possible entry into World War II, and threats of invasion led him to undo some of these reductions. In November 1942, with the Allied landings in North Africa and the German occupation of France bringing hostilities closer than ever to Spain's border, Franco ordered a partial mobilization, bringing the army to over 750,000 men. The Air Force and Navy also grew in numbers and in budgets to 35,000 airmen and 25,000 sailors by 1945, although for fiscal reasons Franco had to restrain attempts by both services to undertake dramatic expansions. The army maintained a strength of about 400,000 men until the end of the Second World War.

Colonial empire and decolonisation

Franco reflecting on his time in Africa said that “Without Africa I can scarcely explain myself to myself, nor can I explain myself properly to my comrades in arms.”

While it attempted to keep them, Francoist Spain was forced to decolonize the last remnants of its colonial empire in north and central Africa. During the Algerian War (1954–1962), Madrid became the base of the Organisation armée secrète right-wing French Army group which sought to preserve French Algeria. Despite this, Franco was forced to make some concessions. When the French protectorate in Morocco became independent in 1956, Spain surrendered its Spanish protectorate in Morocco to Mohammed V, retaining only a few exclaves, the Plazas de soberanía. In 1958, Spanish Sahara and Sid Infi became de jure provinces within Spain, and in 1959, Spanish Guinea became an overseas province. This was an effort to avoid decolonisation by the Spanish Government.

In 1968, under United Nations pressure, Franco granted Spain's colony of Equatorial Guinea its independence and the next year ceded the exclave of Ifni to Morocco. The year after, Mohammed V invaded Spanish Sahara during the Ifni War (known as the "Forgotten War" in Spain). Only in 1975, with the Green March and the military occupation, did Morocco take control of all of the former Spanish territories in the Sahara. Under Franco, Spain also pursued a campaign to gain sovereignty of the British overseas territory of Gibraltar and closed its border in 1969. The border would not be fully reopened until 1985.

Francoism

Initially the regime embraced the definition of a "totalitarian state" or the nacional-sindicalista label inspired by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. Following the defeat of Fascism in World War II, "organic democracy" was the new moniker the regime adopted for itself, yet it only sounded credible to staunch believers. Other later soft definitions include "authoritarian regime" or "constituent or developmental dictatorship", the latter having inner backing from within the regime. During the Cold War, Juan José Linz, either accused of whitewashing the regime or being praised as the elaborator of "the first scientific conceptualization" of the regime, famously early characterized it as an "authoritarian regime with limited pluralism", what led to a debates on whether the regime was authoritarian or fascist, or totalitarian and non-fascist, or fascist and authoritarian. Similarly to Linz, Walter Laqueur writes that the Francoist regime, a "strongly authoritarian" one, was ruled by "conservatives in all essential respects" with the fascists (Falangists) becoming only "junior partners in the government" "without being able to shape it substantially." Still, historians who use the label "authoritarianism" have admitted that originally the regime had totalitarian tendencies and that it may be described as a regime most close to fascist totalitarianism of all the regimes in Europe except for Italy and Germany. The Francoist regime has been described by other scholars as a "Fascismo a la española" ("Spanish-style Fascism") or as a specific variant of Fascism marked by the preponderance of the Catholic Church, the Armed Forces and Traditionalism. Such historians as Ferran Gallego believe that the regime shared essential similarities with fascist regimes of Italy and Germany in culture, politics and social sphere, and that the internal unity of the Nationalists led to them establishing a fascist regime, while the alliance of rightist factions may be compared to the one which took place in Fascist Italy. Some historians believe it accurate to use the terms totalitarianism and fascism towards Francoism, but only towards its initial phase, called "First Francoism", after which the regime became more conventionally authoritarian and renounced the radical fascist ideology of Falangism, although preserving a "major radical fascist ingredient." The Oxford Living Dictionary and Oxford's A Dictionary of Philosophy present Franco's regime as an example of fascism.

While the regime evolved along with its protracted history, its primitive essence remained, underpinned by the legal concentration of all powers into a single person, Francisco Franco, "Caudillo of Spain by the Grace of God", embodying national sovereignty and "only responsible before God and History".

Development

The Falange Española de las JONS, a fascist party formed during the Second Republic, was fused by Franco with the Carlists in April 1937 to create the Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las JONS (FET y de las JONS), which became the regime's official political movement. During Franco's rule it functioned as the sole legal political organization and was commonly referred to as the Movimiento Nacional ("National Movement").

Fascism and authoritarianism

Historians have long disagreed over how to classify Francoist Spain. A major line of interpretation, associated especially with Juan José Linz, describes the regime primarily as authoritarian rather than fully fascist, stressing its limited political pluralism, the heterogeneous composition of the regime coalition, and the predominance of the army, the Church and conservative elites over the single-party model found in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.

Other historians have argued that Francoism belonged, at least in part or during some phases, to the broader family of European fascism. Stanley G. Payne described the regime of 1936–1945 as initially "semi-fascist", while later emphasizing its evolution into a more conservative, Catholic-corporatist authoritarian order. Enrique Moradiellos has similarly characterized Francoism as a military dictatorship that was first fascistized and later transformed into an essentially authoritarian regime, despite retaining fascistic features.

A related position, associated with scholars such as Ismael Saz, treats Francoism as a regime that underwent fascistization without ever becoming a fully fascist state in the Italian or German sense, though its first phase may be called fascist or quasi-fascist and totalitarian or quasi-totalitarian. On this reading, the dictatorship combined fascist elements with military rule, political Catholicism, monarchism and traditionalist conservatism, and its character changed over time, especially after World War II and again with the rise of technocratic elites in the late 1950s.

The historians like Paul Preston and Julián Casanova and also Ferran Gallego believe it adequate to classify Francoism as a form of fascism, even though with a specific Catholic-traditionalist and corporative structure and a specifically important role of the military. The main points made by such historians are that Fascist Italy and to a less extent Nazi Germany were similar heterogenous alliances of radical fascism and conservatism and displayed similar 'limited pluralism', while the Nationalist faction as a whole may be regarded as a fascist movement, since in the course of the Civil War the Nationalists displayed a unity of "regiments in the same army", having passed through radicalization and fascization during the war and prior to it. Some recent studies make emphasis on ideological similarities of Francoism and fascism, noting that Francoism propagated a concept of a "New Man" as an ideal to be used for rebuilding of the Spanish society, similarly to fascism in other countries, although in Spain it was based on an image of a "Christian knight".

Spanish nationalism

Franco's Spanish nationalism promoted a Castilian-centric unitary national identity by repressing Spain's cultural diversity. Bullfighting and flamenco were promoted as national traditions, while those traditions not considered Spanish were suppressed. Franco's view of Spanish tradition was somewhat artificial and arbitrary: while some regional traditions were suppressed, Flamenco, an Andalusian tradition, was considered part of a larger, national identity. All cultural activities were subject to censorship and many were forbidden entirely, often in an erratic manner. This cultural policy relaxed somewhat over time, particularly after the Press Law of 1966 gave the press greater freedom and influence.

Franco was reluctant to enact any form of administrative and legislative decentralisation and kept a fully centralised form of government with a similar administrative structure to that established by the House of Bourbon and General Miguel Primo de Rivera. Francoist Spain was a highly centralised state, and regional self-government was not restored after the Civil War. These structures were modelled after the centralised French state. As a result of this type of governance, government attention and initiatives were irregular and often depended more on the goodwill of government representatives than on regional needs. Thus inequalities in schooling, health care or transport facilities among regions were patent: historically affluent regions like Madrid, Catalonia or the Basque Country fared much better than others such as Extremadura, Galicia or Andalusia.

Franco eliminated the autonomy granted by the Second Spanish Republic to the regions and abolished the centuries-old fiscal privileges and autonomy (the fueros) in two of the three Basque provinces: Guipuzcoa and Biscay, which were officially classified as "traitor regions". The fueros were kept in the other Basque provinces, Alava and Navarre, this last one also a former kingdom during the Middle Ages and the cradle of the Carlists, possibly due to the region's support during the Civil War.

Franco also used language politics in an attempt to establish national homogeneity. Despite Franco himself being a native Galician, the government revoked the official statute and recognition for the Basque, Galician and Catalan languages that the Republic had granted them, as well as other languages such as Asturleonese, Aragonese and Aranese (a dialect of Occitan spoken in the Val d'Aran). The former policy of promoting Spanish (Castilian) as the only official language of the state and education was resumed, even though millions of the country's citizens spoke also other languages. The legal usage of languages other than Spanish was forbidden: all government, notarial, legal and commercial documents were to be drawn up exclusively in Spanish and any written in other languages were deemed null and void. The use of any other language was forbidden in schools, advertising, religious ceremonies and on-road and shop signs. Publications in other languages were generally forbidden, though citizens continued to use them privately. During the late 1960s, these policies became more lenient yet non-Castilian languages continued to be discouraged and did not receive official status or legal recognition. Additionally, the popularisation of the compulsory national educational system and the development of modern mass media, both controlled by the state and exclusively in Spanish, reduced the competency of speakers of Basque, Catalan, Galician, Asturleonese, Aragonese and Aranese.

National Catholicism

Franco's regime often used religion as a means to increase his popularity throughout the Catholic world, especially after the Second World War. Franco himself was increasingly portrayed as a fervent Catholic and a staunch defender of Roman Catholicism, the declared state religion. The regime favoured very conservative Roman Catholicism and reversed the secularisation process that had taken place under the Republic. As Julián Casanova notes, Fascism and Catholicism were "the two cornerstones" of the New State that emerged as the war progressed. According to historian Julian Casanova, "the symbiosis of religion, fatherland and Caudillo" saw the Church assume great political responsibilities, "a hegemony and monopoly beyond its wildest dreams" and it played "a central role in policing the country's citizens".

The Law of Political Responsibility of February 1939 turned the Church into an extralegal body of investigation as parishes were granted policing powers equal to those of local government officials and leaders of the Falange. Some official jobs required a "good behaviour" statement by a priest. According to historian Julian Casanova, "the reports that have survived reveal a clergy that was bitter because of the violent anti-clericalism and the unacceptable level of secularisation that Spanish society had reached during the republican years" and the law of 1939 made the priests investigators of peoples' ideological and political pasts.

The authorities encouraged denunciations in the workplace. For example, Barcelona's city hall obliged all government functionaries to "tell the proper authorities who the leftists are in your department and everything you know about their activities". A law passed in 1939 institutionalised the purging of public offices. The poet Carlos Barral recorded that in his family "any allusion to republican relatives was scrupulously avoided; everyone took part in the enthusiasm for the new era and wrapped themselves in the folds of religiosity". Only through silence could people associated with the Republic be relatively safe from imprisonment or unemployment. After the death of Franco, the price of the peaceful transition to democracy would be silence and "the tacit agreement to forget the past", which was given legal status by the 1977 Pact of Forgetting.

Civil marriages that had taken place in the Republic were declared null and void unless they had been validated by the Church, along with divorces. Divorce, contraception and abortions were forbidden. Children had to be given Christian names. Franco was made a member of the Supreme Order of Christ by Pope Pius XII whilst Spain itself was consecrated to the Sacred Heart.

Role of women

Women had first been granted the right to vote in Spain during the Second Republic. Under the new constitution they had gained full legal status and equal access to the labor market, abortion had been legalized and the crime of adultery abolished.

The Franco regime's embrace of National Catholicism (nacionalcatolicismo) as part of its ideological identity meant that the Catholic Church, which traditionally supported the social subordination of women, had preeminence in all aspects of public and private life in Spain. The Catholic Church had a central role in upholding the traditional role of the family and women's place in it. Civil marriage had also been introduced in the country during the Republic, so the Church immediately asked the new Franco regime to restore its control of family and marriage laws. All Spanish women were required by the state to serve for six months in the Women's Section (Sección Femenina), the female branch of the Falange state party, to undergo training for motherhood along with political indoctrination.

Francoism professed a devotion to the traditional role of a woman in society; that is, being a loving daughter and sister to her parents and brothers, being a faithful wife to her husband, and residing with her family. Official propaganda confined the role of women to family care and motherhood. Immediately after the civil war most progressive laws passed by the Republic aimed at equality between the sexes were nullified. Women could not become judges or testify in a trial. Their affairs and economic lives had to be managed by their fathers and husbands. Until the 1970s, a woman could not open a bank account without having it co-signed by her father or husband. In the 1960s and 1970s these restrictions were somewhat relaxed.

However, from 1941 until well into the Spanish transition to democracy, the Women's Protection Board confined ten of thousands of girls and young women deemed 'fallen or at risk of falling', even without having committed any crime, in centers run by Catholic religious orders where they were routinely brutalized. They could be admitted to these centers starting at age 16 through police raids, for "immoral behavior," arbitrary reports from family members and individuals ("guardians of morals"), requests from civil and religious authorities, or at the request of the women themselves or their parents. In practice, girls as young as 11 were forcibly interned. Young women and girls were routinely trafficked to men and forced to bear children, only to have their babies stolen immediately afterwards.

Homophobia

Francoist Spain was strongly homophobic, criminalising and heavily suppressing homosexual activity. Homosexuality became punishable under the Penal Code of 1944 and was classified under the category of "public scandal, dishonest abuses, and crimes against honesty". In 1945, homosexuality in the Spanish Armed Forces became a criminal offence punishable by incarceration in a military prison for up to six years. In 1954, the Law of Vagrants and Thugs was revised to include homosexuality as one of the offences punishable under the law, prescribing a punishment of being sent to agricultural colonies or work camps for a period of three years. This law marked a shift in the homophobic regime's persecution of homosexuals from punishing specific homosexual acts to punishing individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation regardless of their actions, though it was later modified by the Special Tribunal of Appeals and Revisions to specifically target those who habitually engaged in homosexual activity. In spite of this persecution, an active, albeit clandestine, homosexual movement existed within Spain that maintained ties to queer communities in Latin America. During the latter years of Franco's rule, the influence of increasing consumerism helped to destabilise the sexual authoritarianism of the conservative Catholic dictatorship.

Influence abroad

Argentine General Juan Carlos Onganía modelled his short-lived military regime (1966–1970) after Francoist Spain. Across the Andes Francoism had an influence in Chile, where it found clear expressions in the military dictatorship era (1973–1990), in particular in the period prior to 1980. Chilean figures linked to Francoism include Traditionalist historian Jaime Eyzaguirre and lawyer Jaime Guzmán. Guzman's Guildist Movement, the Constitution of Chile of 1980, the political party Independent Democratic Union founded in 1983, the University of the Andes established in 1989 and the presence of Opus Dei in Chile represent a continuing Francoist heritage. In politics Francoist influence gave way to economic liberalism after 1980.

In the magazine Portada (1969–1976) Chilean traditionalist and conservative intellectuals repeatedly expressed sympathy for ideas associated with Francoism such as "organic democracy" rooted in Medieval institutions and "Hispanic conservatism".

Narrative of the Civil War

For nearly twenty years after the war, Francoist Spain presented the conflict as a crusade against Bolshevism in defence of Christian civilization. In Francoist narrative, authoritarianism had defeated anarchy and overseen the elimination of "agitators", those "without God" and the "Judeo-Masonic conspiracy". Since Franco had relied on thousands of North African soldiers, anti-Islamic sentiment "was played down but the centuries-old myth of the Moorish threat lay at the base of the construction of the "communist menace" as a modern-day Eastern plague". The official position was therefore that the wartime Republic was simply a proto-Stalinist monolith, its leaders intent on creating a Spanish Soviet satellite. Many Spanish children grew up believing that the war had been fought against foreign enemies of Spain's historic greatness. About 6,832 Catholic clergy were murdered by the Republicans. Collectively, they are known as the martyrs of the Spanish Civil War.

Media

Under the Press Law of 1938, Francoist Spain imposed prior censorship on publications. The regime also developed an extensive apparatus for supervising cinema, treating film as an instrument of propaganda and ideological control.

The regime's audiovisual propaganda included the No-Do newsreels, which were shown compulsorily in cinemas. In broadcasting, Radio Nacional de España was the only Spanish radio network authorized to broadcast news, while Televisión Española functioned as the state television service.

The Press and Print Law of 1966 abolished prior censorship, but it did not establish full freedom of the press; instead, important controls remained through sanctions, administrative pressure and self-censorship.

Central administration

There were 119 individuals (plus Franco) holding ministerial jobs during the dictatorship. Most of the ministers came from Madrid, and in proportion to the entire population New Castile (of which Madrid formed part administrationwise) was heavily overrepresented. Other overrepresented regions were (sequentially) Navarre, Vasconia, Asturias, Galicia and Aragon; the most underrepresented regions were (also sequentially) Baleares, Murcia, Extremadura, and Valencia. In terms of jobs, most ministers (32) were professional specialists (engineers, doctors, lawyers), followed by military men (26), businessmen (14) and state employees (10). Some 71% held a university degree, and 28% graduated from military academies. Members of nobility formed some 6%, the lowest level in Spain until then. Only 9% had earlier parliamentary experience, the lowest level until transition to democracy. When assuming office, 41% were aged 40–49, 28% were aged 50–59, 24% were 60 or above and 7% were below 40. Some 36% held the office between 1 and 4 years, 29% between 4 and 8 years, and 23% longer than 8 years, with the average far ahead of this for any of the previous periods. The Franco period marked also the lowest-ever (including post-1978 era) mobility across portfolios, as 85% of ministers held only one.

The longest-serving individuals and the longest ministerial spells are as below:

Economy

The Civil War had ravaged the Spanish economy. Infrastructure had been damaged, workers killed and daily business severely hampered. For more than a decade after Franco's victory, the economy improved little. Franco initially pursued a policy of fascist-style autarky similar to the Italian and German models, resulting in almost all international trade and essential aid being cut off. The policy had devastating effects and was a major contributing factor in the devastation and stagnation of the Spanish economy, alongside a famine that killed over 200,000 people. Only black marketeers could enjoy an evident affluence.

In 1940, the Sindicato Vertical was created. It was inspired by the ideas of José Antonio Primo de Rivera, who thought that class struggle would be ended by grouping together workers and owners according to corporative principles. It was the only legal trade union and was under government control. Other trade unions were forbidden and strongly repressed along with political parties outside the Falange.

The Francoist agrarian colonisation was one of the most ambitious programs related to the regime's agrarian policies, which were an answer to the Republic's Law of Agrarian Reform and the war-time collectivizations. Somewhat inspired by the brief points related to agrarian policy of FE de las JONS, the Francoist colonisation underpinned a materialisation of the agrarian policies vowed by Fascism (connected to the Italian Bonifica integrale or the agrarian policy elements of the Nazi Generalplan Ost). The policy was carried out by the Instituto Nacional de Colonización (INC), created in 1939 with the goal of agricultural modernisation by means of the creation of irrigated lands, improvements in agrarian technology and training and the installment of settlers. It consolidated the privileges of the landowning classes, protecting to a large extent the large landowners from potential expropriations (tierras reservadas where large landowners owners retained land property and were transformed into irrigated lands with help from the INC vs the comparatively smaller tierras en exceso, purchased or expropriated and where settlers installed). While its inception dates to the period of hegemony of Fascist powers in Europe, the plan did not fully take off until the 1950s. From 1940 to 1970 around 300 colonisation settlements were created.

On the brink of bankruptcy, a combination of pressure from the United States (including about $1.5 billion in aid 1954–1964), the IMF and technocrats from Opus Dei managed to "convince" the regime to liberalize the economy in 1959 in what amounted to a mini coup d'état which removed the old guard in charge of the economy, despite the opposition of Franco. However, this economic liberalisation was not accompanied by political reforms and oppression continued unabated.

Legacy

In Spain and abroad, the legacy of Franco remains controversial. In Germany, a squadron named after Werner Mölders has been renamed because as a pilot he led the escorting units in the bombing of Guernica. As recently as 2006, the BBC reported that Maciej Giertych, an MEP of the right-wing League of Polish Families, had expressed admiration for Franco's stature who he believed had "guaranteed the maintenance of traditional values in Europe".

Spanish opinion has changed. Most statues of Franco and other public Francoist symbols have been removed, and the last Franco statue in Madrid came down in 2005. Additionally, in March 2006, the Permanent Commission of the European Parliament unanimously adopted a resolution "firmly" condemning the "multiple and serious violations" of human rights committed in Spain under the Francoist regime from 1939 to 1975. The resolution was at the initiative of the MEP Leo Brincat and of the historian Luis María de Puig and is the first international official condemnation of the repression enacted by Franco's regime. The resolution also urged to provide public access to historians (professional and amateurs) to the various archives of the Francoist regime, including those of the Fundación Francisco Franco, which as well as other Francoist archives remain as of 2006 inaccessible to the public. Furthermore, it urged the Spanish authorities to set up an underground exhibition in the Valley of the Fallen in order to explain the terrible conditions in which it was built. Finally, it proposed the construction of monuments to commemorate Franco's victims in Madrid and other important cities.

In Spain, a commission to restore the dignity of the victims of Franco's regime and pay tribute to their memory (comisión para reparar la dignidad y restituir la memoria de las víctimas del franquismo) was approved in the summer of 2004 and was directed by the then-Vice President María Teresa Fernández de la Vega. Because the Franco dictatorship repressed regional languages and national cultures, Franco's legacy remains especially controversial in Catalonia and the Basque Country. The Basque Provinces and Catalonia were among the regions that offered the strongest resistance to Franco in the Civil War, as well as during his regime.

In 2008, the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory initiated a systematic search for mass graves of people executed during Franco's regime, a move supported since the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party's victory during the 2004 elections by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's government. The Historical Memory Law (Ley de Memoria Histórica) was passed in 2007 as an attempt to enforce official recognition of the crimes committed against civilians during Franco's rule and to organise under state supervision the search for mass graves.

Flags and heraldry

Flags

At the conclusion of the Spanish Civil War and in spite of the army's reorganisation, several sections of the army continued with their bi-colour flags improvised in 1936, but since 1938 new ensigns began to be distributed, whose main innovation was the addition of the eagle of Saint John to the shield. The new arms were allegedly inspired in the coat of arms the Catholic Monarchs adopted after the taking of Emirate of Granada from the Moors, but replacing the arms of Sicily with those of Navarre and adding the Pillars of Hercules on either side of the coat of arms. In 1938, the columns were placed outside the wings. On 26 July 1945, the commander's ensigns were suppressed by decree and on 11 October a detailed regulation of flags was published that fixed the model of the bi-colour flag in use, but better defined its details, emphasising a greater style of the Saint John's eagle. The models established by this decree remained in force until 1977.

During this period, two more flags were usually displayed along with the national flag: the flag of Falange (red, black and red vertical stripes, with the yokes and arrows in the centre of the black stripe) and the traditionalist flag (white background with the Cross of Burgundy in the middle), representing the National Movement which had unified Falange and the Requetés under the name Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las JONS.

From the death of Franco in 1975 until 1977, the national flag followed the 1945 regulations. On 21 January 1977, a new regulation was approved that stipulated an eagle with more open wings, with the restored Pillars of Hercules placed within the wings and the tape with the motto "Una, Grande y Libre" ("One, Great and Free") moved over the eagle's head from its previous position around the neck.

Standards

From 1940 to 1975, Franco used the Royal Bend of Castile as Head of State's standard and guidon: the Bend between the Pillars of Hercules, crowned with an imperial crown and open royal crown.

As Prince of Spain from 1969 to 1975, Juan Carlos used a royal standard which was virtually identical to the one later adopted when he became King in 1975. The earlier standard differed only that it featured the royal crown of a Crown Prince, the King's royal crown has 8 arches of which 5 are visible, while the Prince's one has only 4 arches of which 3 are visible. The Royal Standard of Spain consists of a dark blue square with the coat of arms in the centre. The King's guidon is identical to the standard.

Coat of arms

In 1938, Franco adopted a variant of the coat of arms reinstating some elements originally used by the House of Trastámara such as Saint John's eagle and the yoke and arrows as follows: "Quarterly, 1 and 4. quarterly Castile and León, 2 and 3. per pale Aragon and Navarra, enté en point of Granada. The arms are crowned with an open royal crown, placed on eagle displayed sable, surrounded with the pillars of Hercules, the yoke and the bundle of arrows of the Catholic Monarchs".