Throughout the sixties, dissidence within Franco's Spain grew to become a decisive factor in political life. Total repression was counterproductive to the government's image because it demonstrated that only force guaranteed stability, but a certain level of tolerance was equivalent to weakness and only favoured the expression of discontent. The situation had become more complex. The traditional subversive groups like the Communists now collaborated with others who could not be labeled like this, like Catholics. On the other hand, given their aim to enter the
European Economic Community, the regime had to take care not to use excessive force. However, international opinion really mattered very little. Being imprisoned for political reasons ceased to be, as the historians Carles Feixa and Carme Agustí say, a stigma for the prisoner. Losing freedom to defend it became a source of pride. Labour relations had undergone a major change in 1958, when the Collective Bargaining Law established negotiation between employers and workers as a means of resolving conflicts. It became a novelty in Franco's Spain, where the class struggle had been abolished by decree. In this framework, everyone realized that the consumer society was a qualitative change. Appliances such as televisions or washing machines and vehicles like the Seat 600 were available to workers. This economic growth caused a profound social transformation in Catalonia.
Festival of the Palau de la Música The festival of the palace took place at the
Palau de la Música Catalana on May 19, 1960, during the tribute to the centenary of the birth of Catalan poet
Joan Maragall organized by the
Orfeó Català with Franco's Ministers. Within the authorized repertoire there was the
Cant de la Senyera. Three days earlier, however, the civil governor Felipe Acedo Colunga, forbade it to be sung. This unleashed the indignation of the assistants and
Josep Espar began to sing, then the police began to hit the singer activists.
Jordi Pujol, who was not at the Palau but had been one of the organizers of the event, was arrested on May 22. The future
President of the Generalitat of Catalonia, he faced a war council that took place on June 13. The outcome was a sentence of seven years for Pujol. Pujol would declare years later that the events of the Palau de la Música were the first Catalan victory against the Franco regime.
New declaration of a state of emergency The main reason given by the Minister of Interior, Camilo Alonso Vega, to adopt these measures was a "conspiracy" by the so-called "Contuberni de Munic", a meeting of 118 opponents of the regime that took place in Munich within the framework of the IV Congress of the European International Movement. The state of emergency served the regime to deal with a series of strikes, the consolidation of
ETA and to stop the rebellion of the student movement against the Spanish University Union. Faced with these new movements, the dictatorship showed its most repressive aspect. The suspensions of the Law were repeated until the year Franco died.
Exile of Abbot Escarré The abbot of Montserrat,
Aureli Maria Escarré, renovated the monastery, sent monks to study abroad and gave support to multiple cultural initiatives. Little by little, he adopted a critical stance against the regime, which culminated in statements to the French newspaper
Le Monde, published on November 14, 1963. The abbot declared: "Where there is no authentic freedom, there is no justice, ... the people must be able to choose their government, ... the regime hinders the development of Catalan culture ... the first subversion that exists in Spain is that of the government ... We have not twenty-five years of peace behind, but twenty-five years of victory. It was forced to fight alongside the latter, they have done nothing to end this division between winners and losers, this represents one of the most regrettable failures of a regime called Christian, the state of which, however, does not obey the basic principles of Christianity." The Franco regime was outraged. The authorities pressured the Vatican to take action against Escarré. Finally the abbot received from the Vatican the "recommendation" to leave the monastery. On March 12, 1965, Abbot Escarré went into exile.
Nova Cançó during a performance at the
Olympia in Paris in 2006. in
Almussafes on February 24, 2008. The importance of the
Nova Cançó (New Song) in Francoist Spain was remarkable, breaking the silence imposed by Franco on the Catalan language and culture. The origin of the Nova Cançó was an article by Lluís Serrahima titled "ens calen cançons d'ara" (we need songs from now), published in January 1959 in the magazine
Germinábit, later
Serra d'Or. The first albums were published under the sponsorship of musician Josep Casas i Augé. The Serrano sisters and
Josep Guardiola interpreted versions of some international successes in Catalan, although the Francoist censorship forced them to be sung in Spanish. These performers, together with others like Font Sellabona and Rudy Ventura, made up the beginnings of the Nova Cançó. Miquel Porter i Moix, Remei Margarit and
Josep Maria Espinàs were the founders in 1961 of the group called
Els Setze Jutges. On December 19, 1961, at The Center for Female Catholic Influence of Barcelona, where Miquel Porter and Josep Maria Espinàs sang, the term Nova Cançó was coined. After playing at the Penya Barcelonista in Premià de Mar on April 29, 1962, Espinàs baptized the incipient movement as Els Setze Jutges.
Delfí Abella and Francesc Pi de la Serra joined in 1962, then
Enric Barbat, Xavier Elies and Guillermina Motta in 1963, Maria del Carme Girau, Martí Llauradó, Joan Ramon Bonet and Maria Amèlia Pedrerol in 1964,
Joan Manuel Serrat in 1965,
Maria del Mar Bonet in 1966 and, finally, Rafael Subirachs and
Lluís Llach completed the sixteen members in 1967.
La Caputxinada In the middle of the sixties, the Francoist union Sindicato Español Universitario (SEU) opposed an assembly from which arose the future SDEUB (Democratic Students ' Union of the University of Barcelona), with more than a thousand students gathering at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Barcelona. Everything was planned for the constitution of the SDEUB, which took place on March 9, 1966, at the
Sarrià Capuchins. The Capuchin fathers had given permission to use their auditorium, hence the word "Caputxinada". More than 500 people, especially students, but also teachers and 33 intellectuals and artists such as
Jordi Rubió,
Joan Oliver,
Salvador Espriu,
Antoni Tàpies and
Maria Aurèlia Capmany, met at Sarrià. In just one hour the statutes, the declaration of principles and the manifesto had been approved (which was titled "Per una universitat democrática",
for a democratic university). There was just enough time to be able to constitute the SDEUB before the police arrived at the convent and gave the order to immediately dissolve the assembly.
Meeting of intellectuals at Montserrat "La Tancada d'intellectuals a Montserrat" (meeting of intellectuals in Montserrat) on 12–14 December 1970 was the main act by the anti-Francopist opposition in Catalonia in reaction to the war council in Burgos against
ETA militants. On December 12, 1970, in the Abbey of Montserrat, 300 Catalan intellectuals gathered: writers, singers, journalists, painters, actors, filmmakers, thespians, editors, cultural professionals, and other people with a recognized political commitment. The meeting was intended to protest the Burgos Process, the war council that condemned ETA militants. It lasted three days under the threat of police assault. The participants debated about the current state of the country and its future, and they founded a permanent assembly, the Permanent Assembly of Catalan Intellectuals, that would work from that moment to have a prominent role in future political events. In the course of the meeting, a manifesto was drafted in which political amnesty, democratic freedoms and the right to self-determination were requested. The meeting came from two organizations opposed to the Franco regime, La Taula Rodona (1966–1973) and the Coordinating Commission of the Political Forces of Catalonia (which preceded the Council of Political Forces of Catalonia). The consequences for the participants were severe: strong economic sanctions, withdrawal of passports, prohibition to act in public, etc. The international impact of the meeting led the regime to commute death sentences.
Assembly of Catalonia The Assembly of Catalonia was founded on November 7, 1971, in the church of Sant Agustí, Barcelona, as a unifying platform for Catalan anti-Francoism under the initiative of the Coordinator of the Political Forces of Catalonia, quickly grouping the vast majority of political parties, unions and social organizations and deriving the motto: "Freedom, Amnesty and
Statute of Autonomy." Their programme was: • For democratic rights and freedoms. • Access of the people to economic power. • Access of the people to political power. • For the full exercise of the right of self-determination. During the seventies the Assembly of Catalonia was the main framework for the coordination of resistance against the dictatorship and led and organized the main popular mobilizations of the time. Among them, the March of Liberty, in the summer of 1976.
Iberian Liberation Movement The Movimiento Ibérico de Liberación (MIL) was a Catalan ultra-left armed group between 1971 and 1973, based mainly in Barcelona and
Toulouse, France. It became famous after its dissolution because of the execution by the Francoist regime of one of its members,
Salvador Puig Antich, in March 1974, and of the shooting of
Oriol Solé Sugranyes during his escape in 1976. Catalans interpreted Puig Antich's execution as symbolic retaliation for the region's
fight for autonomy, which led to public demonstrations. As one of Franco's last victims, Puig Antich became a household name in Barcelona. The
Internationalist Revolutionary Action Groups (GARI) formed to avenge his death.
De-Francoisation In Catalonia, after the death of the dictator, the exterior signs ( "Avenida Francisco Franco" and "Plaza del Caudillo", etc.) of the Franco regime disappeared quickly. The first national legislation waited until the 2007
Historical Memory Law. On November 25, 2015, Òmnium Cultural organised a condemnation of crimes of Francoism and a homage to its victims, supported by the Democratic Memorial (Generalitat de Catalunya) and the City Council of Barcelona. ==See also==