Hundreds of far-right supporters from across Europe, many making stiff-armed salutes, gathered Sunday in Madrid to mark the 34th anniversary of the death of Spanish dictator General Francisco Franco.

Many in the crowd waved red-and-yellow Spanish flags with the insignia of the Franco regime's Falange party at the annual rally in Plaza de Oriente, the square where the dictator used to regularly address supporters at rallies during his nearly four decades in power.

Franco, also know as the Generalissimo, ruled Spain with an authoritarian hand between 1939 and his death on November 20, 1975, at the age of 82.
Supporters credit Franco with providing Spain with political stability which they say gave the country a rising standard of living and industrial growth.

Since his death dwindling numbers of nostalgic supporters commemorate his passing on the Sunday closest to November 20.

On Friday, the anniversary of Franco's death, a memorial mass was held at his mausoleum near Madrid.

The service held at the Valley of the Fallen also marked the anniversary of the execution in 1936 of Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, the founder in 1933 of the Falange, the party that provided the ideological basis for the Franco's regime, who is also buried in the mausoleum.

Both events are largely ignored by Spain's mainstream political parties and are given little coverage by the national media.

Supporters credit Franco with providing Spain with political stability which they say gave the country a rising standard of living and industrial growth.

But his critics stress his suppression of fundamental democratic rights. Under Franco political parties and non-government trade unions were banned, press freedoms curtailed and separatists and communists repressed.

His regime, exceedingly harsh at the outset, was moderated somewhat from the middle of the 1950s until his death in the mid 1970s.

Published Date: 21 November 2005
By DANIEL WOOLLS
IN MADRID
HUNDREDS of right-wing demonstrators made fascist salutes and shouted insults against gays, Muslims and immigrants at a rally marking the 30th anniversary of the death of dictator General Francisco Franco yesterday.
Waving Spanish flags with the insignia of the Franco regime's Falange party, the crowd gathered at the Plaza de Oriente, in Madrid, beside the royal palace - a traditional meeting place for Spaniards nostalgic for Franco's rule.

Franco died on 20
November, 1975, aged 82, after nearly 40 years in power.

Representatives of far-right parties from Germany, Italy and France attended the gathering.

At several points during the rally the 1,000-strong crowd shouted insults about Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Spain's socialist prime minister.

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 young couples pushing prams with babies. Boys in their teens or younger walked around wrapped in the Spanish flag.

Blas Pinar, the ageing leader of a largely defunct far-right party called New Force, told the crowd that Franco had transformed Spain from a country riddled with poverty and illiteracy into one with "enviable industrial development" and an acute, unified national identity.

Pinar then depicted Spain's post-Franco, democratic constitution of 1978 as the root of all ills in a country he described as riddled with crime, decadence and regional separatism that threatens to break the country apart. His grandson, Miguel Menendez Pinar, spoke insultingly of homosexuals and Muslims, adding: "Spain is dying, or better said, Spain is being murdered."

Parliament passed a gay marriage bill in June giving full legal recognition to same-sex marriages. The law angered the Catholic Church and Spanish conservatives, but polls suggest most Spaniards back it.

Viva el Jefe

Vivan los Francos (like me)

JAJAJAJJAJA

Franco saved Spain from being another Soviet Union with less power. He prove anything is better than communism. Every nation had at some point threat from communism. Spain got lucky that they had someone like Franco who took the Republican commies bolshevista there and made them clean his boot and then Franco kicked them with it. The history of Spain civil war is very fascinating. On one side The Republican anti-God running on idea on the other side the Nationalist running on traditional values and strong patriotism for their mother land.

Viva Franco Viva Espana

Yo quiero a un Franco pa Santo Domingo... Wait a minute... I am a FRANCO JJAJAJJAJAJA

who would vote for me!

Viva Franco Viva Santo Domingo

Franco, Castro, Trujillo, Chavez ... they come they go, some eulogize the stability they created, others condemn their rights abuses ... same story each time, just different uniforms and slogans

You aren't White, he and hitler probably would've killed you.

Probably not. Hitler left the small population of blacks alive, though I believe there was forced sterilization, because they were visible. The Jews could look like Germans and have to be separated to keep from any (genetic) exposure.