SUPPORTERS OF FRANCO RISK $225,000 FINE

Backers of General Francisco Franco have promised to use the courts to fight a new law banning expressions of support for Spain's former dictator.

The left-wing coalition government in Madrid passed a draft bill which would impose fines on anyone who supports Franco's fascist regime and “denigrates or demeans the dignity of the victims” of the Spanish Civil War, which raged from 1936 to 1939.

Under the terms of the legislation, the Francisco Franco Foundation, which promotes the dictator's legacy, could be abolished. Expressing support for Franco or his supporters and ideas will carry a maximum fine of $225,000.

The Democratic Memory Law is another step in the socialist government's campaign to heal the divisions of the civil war and Franco's dictatorship, which lasted for nearly 40 years until his death in 1975.

However, the Foundation Francisco Franco condemned the law as “unconstitutional.”