Far-right uptick in Spain raises concern

A spike in support for Spain's far right is reviving memories of late dictator Francisco Franco and burnishing his legacy among disaffected young Spaniards, even as the left-wing government seeks to eradicate symbols of the fascist past.



AI-generated clips of Franco railing against modern ills proliferate on social media along with revisionist history lessons and nightclubs playing techno remixes of Spain's fascist-era anthem.



A survey by state-run pollster CIS last month showed that more than one in five - 21.3% - of Spaniards saw the Franco era as "good" or "very good" for the country, compared to 11.2% when asked a similar question in 2000.



In another CIS poll from July, 17.3% of Spaniards aged 18-24 said they preferred an authoritarian government to a democratic one, a 10-point jump from 2009.

Spaniards are largely split along the right-left divide over how to handle the legacy of the four-decade dictatorship that followed the 1936-39 civil war, which ended with Franco's death 50 years ago on Thursday at age 82.



Hitherto, democratic Spain has done little of the soul-searching of other nations with troubled pasts like South Africa, with its Truth and Reconciliation Commission, or Chile, with the jailing of generals from its past military regime.



Since coming to office in 2018, the Socialist-led government of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has stepped up efforts.



It has exhumed the remains of victims of Francoism, designated sites of repression as places of "democratic memory", removed Franco-era symbols from public spaces, and run advertising campaigns about the benefits of democracy.