Fascists march through Madrid to commemorate dictator's anniversary

Hundreds of Spanish fascists marched through Madrid this week, just one day after the country commemorated the 50th anniversary of the death of its divisive former right-wing dictator, Francisco Franco.

Performing fascist salutes and carrying Franco-era national flags, members of the Falange — an organisation that considers itself the heir to the now-defunct fascist movements that helped bring Franco to power during the devastating 1936–1939 civil war — gathered on November 21 to honour the movement’s founder, Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, Euractiv reported.

De Rivera’s death anniversary falls on the same date as Franco’s, but the Falange primarily used the occasion to denounce what it calls democratic Spain’s 1978 constitutional “regime,” which followed the end of Franco’s rule from 1939 to 1975, which continues to divide society and fuel political polarisation.

Marchers then proceeded from the headquarters of the main conservative Popular Party to that of the ruling Socialists, where a significant police deployment awaited them, according to AFP journalists.

“National unity”, “PSOE, PP, it’s the same war!”, they shouted, as seen in videos shared on social media, also carrying an anti-migrant banner.

Among those present was Orsola Mussolini, great-granddaughter of Italy’s fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, whose regime provided crucial military support to Franco during the civil war alongside Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany.

According to the central government’s delegation in the Madrid region, 700 people took part in the march. An anti-fascist counter-protest in Madrid has been scheduled for November 22.

By Nazrin Sadigova