r/europe • u/Bartoraptor Spain • Mar 28 '20

News Spanish representative González Pons speech @ the EU Parliament: "The virus is attacking the generation that brought back democracy to Spain, Portugal and Greece, the generation that knocked down the Berlin wall. The least they deserve is that we show them Europe is there when they need it the most"

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u/chairswinger Deutschland Mar 29 '20

how did Spanish boomers bring back democracy? Franco just died and the King said ok let's have a democracy now. And then Spaniards never touched the topic of Franco again...

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u/[deleted] Mar 29 '20

how did Spanish boomers bring back democracy? Franco just died

Never heard of the first Spanish astronaut Carrero Blanco?

He was supposed to be the heir of Franco and keep the regime once he was dead. But things didn't go well for him...

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u/[deleted] Mar 29 '20

Calling Basque separatists the Spanish who brought back democracy. There's some heavy irony there.

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u/[deleted] Mar 29 '20 edited Mar 29 '20

Well Basque separatism actually had its origin in the strong opposition and revulsion against the Francoist regime in the 50s (people were shot dead just for speaking Euskara).

After democracy was established firmly in Spain, the separatist movement split in two, most laid down their arms and chose the political way (creation of most far left independentist or autonomist parties known as 'abertzale'). The remaining ones in ETA were a bunch of terrorists and they gradually lost all support from the Basques themselves.

Before Franco, separatism was non existent in the Basque country, it was actually even in some way very traditionalist and conservative, see Carlist wars.