Overview
- This week marks 50 years since Francisco Franco’s death and the proclamation of Juan Carlos I.
- Commentary argues the proclamation before the Francoist Cortes, delivered with Franco’s coffin still present, signaled the true start of the Transition and merits commemoration.
- A new memoir published in France by Laurence Debray portrays Juan Carlos as embittered in old age and has not appeared to damage Felipe VI.
- Personal accounts highlight how families long repressed under Franco later experienced political inclusion and social mobility during the Transition.
- The period faces renewed revisionism from parts of the left, the independence movement, and some on the right, prompting calls to transmit its lessons of concord to younger generations.