Activists mark anniversary of Franco's death
Hundreds of right-wing demonstrators made stiff-armed fascist salutes and shouted insults against gays, Muslims and immigrants at a rally today marking the 30th anniversary of the death of dictator General Francisco Franco.
Waving red and yellow Spanish flags with the insignia of the Franco regime’s Falange party, the crowd gathered at the Plaza de Oriente, right beside the royal palace in Madrid’s old quarter.
It is a traditional meeting place for Spaniards nostalgic for Franco’s rule, some of them elderly and some so young they had not even been born when Franco died on November 20, 1975, at the age of 82 after nearly 40 years in power.
Representatives of far-right parties from Germany, Italy and France attended the gathering. Police declined to give an estimate of how many people were there, but one officer estimated the crowd at a thousand, or slightly more.
At several points during the rally, the crowd used foul language to shout insults about Spain’s Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.
Franco supporters are a small minority in Spain and there is no significant far-right party. The demonstrators ranged in age from the elderly to babies.
Camilo Menendez Pinar, grandson of Blas Pinar, founder of a largely defunct far-right party called New Force, said Spain had become a godless, crime-ridden society since Franco died in 1975 and that is overrun with immigrants.
“Spain is dying, or better said, Spain is being murdered,” he said, speaking insultingly of homosexuals and Muslims.
The square is symbolic for the protesters because during his regime, Franco would address crowds – many of them bused into the city by the government - there every year on July 18.
He appeared on a balcony of the royal palace to commemorate the day he launched a military uprising against Spain’s elected, Republican government in 1936, starting the civil war his fascist forces would eventually win.
Angry right-wing demonstrators gathered there in March, taunting police and making fascist salutes, after the Socialist government tore down Madrid’s last publicly displayed statue of the late dictator.
