Friday, October 17, 2025

Over 21% of Spaniards think the Franco years were ‘good or very good,’ survey shows

Among voters of the mainstream conservative Popular Party (PP), more people believe the dictatorship was ‘good’ than ‘bad.’ And 61% of far-right Vox voters believe the democratic system is worse or much worse than Francoism ever was

Pro-Franco rally in July 2018 in Cuelgamuros Valley outside Madrid.
SANTI BURGOS

NATALIA JUNQUERA

Madrid - OCT 13, 2025 - 16:55 WEST

More than 21% of the Spanish population considers the years of Francisco Franco’s dictatorship (1939-1975) to have been “good or very good,” according to the latest CIS poll, compared to 65.5% of the population who says they were “bad or very bad.”

Disapproval of the dictatorship is four percentage points higher among women, who needed a man’s supervision to do things like open a bank account under Franco. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the dictator’s death, and the Spanish government has organized hundreds of events to celebrate the country’s significant transformation since then.

By political sympathies, within the mainstream conservatives of the Popular Party (PP), a majority (35.4%) believes the years of the dictatorship were “good,” which is 4.5 percentage points more than those who believe they were “bad.” Among voters of the far-right Vox — whose leader Santiago Abascal has stated in Congress that Spain’s current leftist administration is worse than the Franco dictatorship — the percentage of those who believe those years were good rises to 42%. The perception about this historical period marked by a lack of freedoms changes radically depending on the voter’s political affiliation. Thus, the gap between Socialist voters and Vox voters who consider the Franco years to have been “very bad” is 58.2 points.

By age, almost 20% of young people between 18 and 24 years old, who did not personally live through the dictatorship, believe it was “good” or “very good.” These percentages vary according to age: 15.9% in the 25-to-34 bracket view Francoism positively; so do 18.5% of those aged 35 to 44; 20.6% among those aged 45 to 54; 24.5% in the 55-to-64 group; 22.6% in the 65-to-74 group; and up to 25.8% of those over 75 rate it positively, although the majority overall believe it was bad or very bad.

A Vox lawmaker,Manuel Mariscal, said in Congress in November that “thanks to social media, a lot of youths are discovering that the period following the Civil War (1936-1939) was not one of darkness, but of progress and reconciliation to achieve national unity.”

Over 21% of Spaniards think the Franco years were ‘good or very good,’ survey shows

Among voters of the mainstream conservative Popular Party (PP), more people believe the dictatorship was ‘good’ than ‘bad.’ And 61% of far-r...