Spanish youth are increasingly seduced by General Francisco Franco 50 years after the dictator’s death, often unaware of his harsh rule and influenced by propaganda permeating social media, experts say.

“Life was better under Franco” has become a trope on social media, hooking a frustrated generation that has received little education on the dictatorship and is receptive to anti-system politics.

After overthrowing a democratic republic in a 1936-1939 civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of people, Franco ruled Spain with an iron fist until his death in 1975.

But Cristina Luz Garcia, who teaches history at a Madrid school, said she has seen some of her students repeat “myths” and “phrases that are closely tied to the regime itself and Francoist propaganda”.

Those pupils do not ha

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