Spain seeks to speed up dissolution of Franco foundation

The far-right organisation was created in 1976 to honour the memory of the fascist-backed general who overthrew a democratic republic in a brutal 1936-1939 civil war and ruled with an iron fist until his death in 1975.

Sánchez's government has worked to repair past injustices, notably through a 2022 democratic memory law that honours victims of the dictatorship and pressures local governments to eliminate regime symbols.

It began collecting evidence about the foundation in 2024 with a view to requesting its dissolution by the legal authorities.

"There is a slow but constant effort to delegitimise democracy. It starts by calling revisionism 'harmony'," Sánchez warned during an event in Madrid on an official day of remembrance for the dictatorship's victims.

Sánchez cited a recent survey in which more than one-fifth of Spaniards thought the dictatorship was "good" or "very good", which he called "the result of revisionism that seeks to obscure our history, to cloud our present".

"We will accelerate the procedure to legally press for the dissolution of the Francisco Franco Foundation," Sánchez said.

Left-wing Culture Minister Ernest Urtasun told reporters that the government had informed the foundation of its decision to proceed with the process, a step before the dissolution is decided by the courts.

The foundation contravenes the democratic memory law, "because it does not pursue the general interest, because it glorifies the coup, and because it humiliates the victims", Urtasun said in Barcelona.

The conservative opposition says the government is trying to reopen the wounds of the past and distract attention from corruption scandals through its democratic memory efforts, vowing to repeal the 2022 law if it returns to power.

The Francisco Franco Foundation denied that its activities humiliated anyone or incited hate, calling the move "a scandalous violation" of the constitutional right to freedom of ideology and expression.

"The shadow of the most serious suspicions of corruption hangs over this social-communist government. Only in this context should a decision so lacking in legal basis be situated," it said in a statement.