Franco Lives On: The inner circle of the dictatorship who have held on to their privileges under democracy

By Lluc Salellas i Vilar

Franco Lives On traces the birth of democracy in Spain in 1978 after forty years under Franco's dictatorship. It reveals the hidden side of what happened during the Spanish Transition. This study is the key to understanding the opaque workings of justice and the incapability of dialogue shown by the political powers in Madrid in recent years in response to challenges such as the referendum in Catalonia or the demise of ETA.
What became of Franco's ministers after the arrival of the new Spanish Constitution? Were they driven out of the corridors of power or did they stay there and add to their wealth and political influence? The answers can be found in this book, which spotlights how the political elite in Spain have lacked the capacity for renewal seen in other European Union States.
The author, Lluc Salellas i Vilar, has produced an extensive piece of investigative journalism on the families and individuals who wielded greatest influence during the dictatorship and the role which they and their relatives have continued to play ever since.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Edicions Saldonar
• Release date: Dec 22, 2018
• ISBN: 9788417611064

Book preview

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FRANCO

LIVES ON

Lluc Salellas i Vilar

CONTENTS

The Historical Context as Seen from Catalonia

Stifled by the Franco regime

Introduction

Francoism

Transitions: Greece, Portugal and Spain

The Franco Regime’s factions: past, present and future?

1. Introduction

2. Participation on the boards of major firms

2. 1. Sport

2. 2. Still in business

3. Employed by the Administration

3. 1. Universities

3. 2. Institutions

3. 3. The Army

4. Members of Parliament and founders of conservative political parties

4. 1. Unión de Centro Democrático

4. 2. Alianza Popular, later known as Partido Popular

4. 3. The far right

5. The two thousand families in control since 1939

5. 1. From Mariano Rajoy to José Ignacio Wert

5. 2. From José Bono to Felipe de Borbón

6. The heart of the Franco regime

7. Amnesty and the streets of shame

8. Language, websites, religion and obituaries

Conclusions

Epilogue to the English Edition of ‘Franco Lives On’

Index of Names and Acronyms

The Historical Context

as Seen from Catalonia

Henry Ettinghausen

Emeritus Professor of Spanish,

University of Southampton

On 11 September 2018, well over a million people filled over six kilometres of Barcelona’s huge Avinguda Dia­gonal. Similar impassioned, but utterly peaceful, demonstrations happen every 11 September, Catalonia’s national day.

Catalonia’s national day commemorates the fall of Barcelona in 1714 to the forces of Philip V of Spain after a fifteen-month siege which saw tens of thousands of shells rain down on the city’s inhabitants. After bombing Barcelona into surrender, Philip sought to demolish, once and for all, the bases of Catalan national identity, setting up an implacable regime of repression, abolishing­ at a stroke Catalonia’s centuries-old system of self-­government, imposing direct rule from Madrid, outlawing the Catalan language, etc. And in 1716 he formally fused Castile and Aragon into a single Spanish state.

1714 was not, however, the first time that Cata­lonia’s established rights had been annulled and its ­national identity threatened. The so-called Reapers’ War had begun in 1640 as a revolt against Philip IV’s attack on the independence of Catalonia’s political institutions and public administration and against the atrocities committed by Spanish troops billeted in Catalonia. It had ended in 1652 when another fifteen-month siege of Barcelona, exacerbated by starvation and plague, forced the city to surrender.

In the Middle Ages the Principality of Catalonia had been the political and economic powerhouse of the Kingdom of Aragon, conquering Sicily, Menorca and the Kingdom of Naples and establishing over a hundred consulates around the Mediterranean. The Ca­talan ‘Corts’, which date from the 13th century, are regarded as a model of early parliamentarianism. There, whilst the people swore loyalty to the king, he swore to uphold the laws passed by the Corts. When, in 1469, Aragon was joined to Castile by the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catalans maintained their right to pass and implement their own legislation.

After the disaster of 1714, in the course of the 19th century Catalonia reasserted its national identity in a movement known as the ‘Renaixença’ which aimed at promoting Catalan culture and restoring the Catalan language as a vehicle for national revival. The last two decades of the century saw the resurgence of Catalan political aspirations and the claim to national autonomy. At the same time, under Gaudí and a host of other brilliant architects and artisans, the spectacular expansion of Barcelona gave expression to the pride of Cata­lonia’s bourgeoisie, the promoters and beneficiaries of a powerful industrial revolution.

Despite the dictatorship of General Primo de Rivera, which sought, once again, to outlaw Catalan nationalism and the Catalan language, the struggle between Spanish centralism and Catalan national aspirations continued unabated. ‘Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya’ (ERC), a party that advocated moderate socialism, republicanism and self-determination, achieved a spectacular victory in the municipal elections in 1931, the results of which forced Alfonso XIII into exile. Two days later, the Spanish Republic was proclaimed and the Generalitat (autonomous government) of Catalonia was revived. In 1932 a first Statute of Autonomy for Catalonia was approved by the Spanish parliament in spite of strong opposition.

When, in July 1936, rebel generals attempted a coup d’état against the Spanish Republic, the rebellion was resisted for nearly three years, almost entirely by civilians, in what became the Spanish Civil War. Franco could not have won that war without the aid of Hitler and Mussolini, one detail of which Picasso set before the world: the Nazis’ bombing of Gernika.

When Franco’s army conquered Catalonia, he changed its name, significantly, from ‘Army of Liberation’ to ‘Army of Occupation’. His victory meant the implacable persecution of all those who could be ­denounced as unsympathetic to his Fascist regime. It also meant the annulment of the Statute of Autonomy and the banning of Catalan institutions. The Catalan language was reduced to family use, with Spanish imposed as the language of education, administration and the media.

Hundreds of thousands of Catalans fled into exile in the winter of 1939. Many of them died on the freezing beaches of southern France, whilst others ended up in Nazi death camps. For those who stayed behind, Franco’s military dictatorship meant the total annulment of democratic rights, the prohibition and persecution of political parties, except for the fascist Falange, summary kangaroo courts, prison, torture, hard labour and executions. Some four thousand Catalans were executed between the end of the war and 1953, amongst them the President of Catalonia, Lluís Companys, who was arrested in France, handed over to Franco and tortured and executed in Barcelona in 1940.

Franco’s dictatorship was characterised by the remorseless repression of the slightest glimmer of dissent and by fierce censorship of the media, including plays and films. Also by the exaltation of National Catholicism, whereby the Church collaborated enthusiastically with the regime, and by the sanctification of the supposed essence of everything Spanish, celebrated every 12 October on the ‘Día de la Raza’ (Day of the Spanish Race).

Franco survived the Second World War, with his Spain being perceived by the West as an invaluable bastion against Communism. But when the dictator died in his bed in 1975, it was unclear whether the Fascist state would survive him. In the event, under huge popular pressure for change, the Francoist establishment negotiated an arrangement, known as the ‘Transition’, that was trumpeted as a model for non-violent change from dictatorship to democracy.

Thanks to a law passed by Franco’s so-called parliament in 1947, he alone had the right to appoint his successor, and in 1969 he named Alfonso XIII’s grandson, Juan Carlos, for the job. From 1947, at the age of nine, Juan Carlos had been groomed for the post, and he was appointed head of state two days after Franco’s death. The imposition of the monarchy by the dictator has never been subjected to popular approval.

As for the Constitution that was approved in 1978, it was drawn up under the heavy shadow of the army and of the Francoist ruling class that had survived the dictator intact. Not a single member of the Franco regime faced any kind of charge. There was no attempt – either then or since – to come to grips with the illegitimacy, injustice and inhumanity of forty years of dictatorship.

Under Franco the slogan had been drummed into the populace that Spain was ‘Una’, ‘Grande’, ‘Libre’ (‘One’, ‘Great’ and ‘Free’). Whether Spain was ‘Great’ was a matter of opinion – it was certainly the only Fascist dictatorship in Western Europe. And it was absolutely not ‘Free’, except for the most fanatical supporters of the regime. But it certainly was ‘One’.

For all Right-thinking Spaniards, the notion of Spain’s immutable unity was – and still is – second only (at the very least) to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Being ‘Una’ meant that no part of Spain – i.e. the Ca­talans and the Basques – would ever again be allowed to distinguish itself as in any significant way different from the rest. When, at the end of the Civil War, the opponents of Franco’s insurgent army were put on trial, they had typically been accused of plotting to destroy Spain by indulging in a combination of separatism, Communism and Judeo-Masonic treachery.

The power of Francoism’s heirs ensured that the unbreakable unity of Spain was enshrined in the 1978 Constitution – a constitution that (it could be said, with little exaggeration) had been discreetly drawn up at gunpoint. In order to ‘decaffeinate’ the centuries-long aspirations of Catalans and Basques to self-rule, the Constitution instituted what is commonly known as ‘Coffee for All’ – a system of devolution that was applied to the whole of Spain, which was divided up into seventeen regions, all of which were granted considerable degrees of autonomy, some against their will.

In 2006 a new Statute of Autonomy for Catalonia was approved by the Catalan and the Spanish parliaments, and confirmed by referendum in Catalonia, but it was contested by the conservative People’s Party (PP), which sent the bill to the conservative Spanish Constitutional Court. In 2010 the court invalidated articles that established an autonomous Catalan system of justice, an improved financial deal for Catalonia, the status of the Catalan language and the right of Catalonia to be re­cognised as a nation. In response, a huge demonstration was held in Barcelona, and the claim to the right of self-determination received colossal support.

On 11 September 2012, another massive demonstration was held which called for a referendum on self-determination, and in 2013 the Catalan parliament approved a declaration calling for just that. On 9 November 2014 the Catalan government organised an informal referendum on independence which gained the support of over 80% of the 2,250,000 votes cast. But the referendum had been declared illegal by Spain’s PP government, and the President of Catalonia and several of his cabinet ministers were put on trial.

That was the situation when the book you have in your hands came out in its original Catalan edition. Having attempted a thumbnail sketch of the centuries-long conflict between Catalonia and Spain up to 2015, we can now very briefly outline events thereafter.

On 9 November 2015, the Catalan parliament voted to begin the process of creating an independent Ca­talan Republic. As a result, on 1 October 2017, a second referendum was held, despite every effort by the Spanish state to prevent it. On the day, the shockingly brutal use of force against voters on the part of the Spanish National Police and Civil Guard, many thousands of whom had been transferred to Catalonia for the occasion, was witnessed by television viewers the world over – except in Spain, where (as always) the media censored itself. Two days later, Philip VI made a televised speech denouncing the referendum and making no reference whatever to the police brutality, a speech that instantly earned him the permanent repulsion of a majority of Catalans.

The 2017 referendum had asked the question: Do you want Catalonia to become an independent state in the form of a republic? On a turnout of 43%, over 2,020,000 voters answered Yes, and around 177,000 answered No. As regards the turnout, it is estimated that up to 770,000 votes were not cast, simply because many polling stations had been shut by the police crackdown.

On 27 October, on a motion to set up the independent Republic of Catalonia, 70 of the 135 MPs voted in favour, 10 voted against, and there were two blank ballots, the rest were abstentions. Within hours, the Spanish senate invoked Article 155 of the Constitution, authorising direct rule over Catalonia. That included the dissolution of the Catalan parliament, the dismissal of the Catalan government and the chief of the Catalan police, and a snap Catalan parliamentary election for 21 December 2017.

Once again, despite the imprisonment or exile of Catalonia’s most crucial political and civic leaders, including the President, the Vice-President and the Speaker of the parliament, the election was won by the parties that favour independence. The nine political and civic leaders arrested, some of them eleven months ago, are still in jail awaiting trial on trumped-up charges that carry sentences of up to thirty years, whilst those in exile have seen Spain’s demands for their extradition refused by courts in Belgium, Germany, Scotland and Switzerland. In addition, hundreds of Catalan mayors and activists, actors and rappers face an array of cri­minal charges.

Spain’s PP government fell in June 2018, and the PSOE (Socialist) government has this very day obtained parliamentary approval for Franco’s remains to be removed from the grotesque mausoleum where they have lain for the past forty-three years. Franco’s mummy may be removed, but his legacy lives on: in the thousands of unmarked graves of Republican soldiers, in numerous Fascist organisations (not least the ‘Fundación Nacional Francisco Franco’), in the furiously anti-Catalan stance of the PP and the newer party, ‘Ciudadanos’, which vie with each other to spout Fascist bile, and – as Lluc Salellas’s splendid book documents meticulously – in the survival of the Francoist ruling class up to the present day. Despite the celebrated Transition, Franco lives on.

13

September

2018

Stifled by the Franco regime

David Bassa

Ex-president of the Ramon Barnils Group of Journalists

We don’t want to acknowledge it, but every