Franco Is 'Punk' in Spain, and Historians Are Worried

A half-century after the death of Francisco Franco, Spain finds itself grappling with a resurgence of support for the dictator—particularly among younger conservatives. The New York Times explores the issue, framing it with a succinct snapshot of Franco's often brutal reign from 1939 to 1975, a stretch in which "he suppressed free speech, imprisoned dissidents and repressed the country's linguistic and cultural minorities—while pleasing his supporters by improving infrastructure and the economy." That last part may help explain a surprising result in a new national survey: 20% of the nation's youth have a favorable view of the autocrat.

The Spanish government, led by the left-leaning Pedro Sánchez, is pushing back with a "Spain in Freedom" campaign, which includes everything from T-shirts and comic books to social media workshops and even a Franco-themed escape room. It's all aimed at reminding Spaniards—especially young ones—what life under a dictatorship was really like. The government's strategy is to try to demystify Franco and reinforce the value of democracy. Conservatives, for their part, are either ignoring the campaign or mocking it as political theater.

"He did really good things for Spain," is the view of one 25-year-old quoted in the story, a supporter of the growing far-right party Vox. "Everyone lived better under Franco. Everyone." A counter to that comes in a separate Times op-ed by Paco Cerda, whose great-grandfather was executed by firing squad by Franco's forces. He laments how Franco has become a "new kind of punk" for the nation's youth. "In forgetting his reign of terror and sanitizing his memory, we risk trivializing authoritarianism and weakening democracy."

Cerda and a story at the Guardian question whether what is known as Spain's "Pact of Forgetting," a tacit social policy that took hold in the wake of Franco's death, has ultimately backfired. Instead of confronting the abuses of Franco, the idea at the time was to largely ignore them and move forward. "That allowed generations and generations of Spaniards to grow up without knowing what had happened in our country during the 20th century, or being brought up on a fictional tale that equated victims with torturers and democrats with fascists," historian Carlos Hernández de Miguel tells the Guardian.