50 years after the dictator's death on November 20, 1975, Juan Carlos has published his memoir, "Reconciliación", written together with the French author Laurence Debray.
Juan Carlos was proclaimed king just two days after the dictator's death and now writes that he had "great respect" for Franco, who could sometimes be both "tender and benevolent."
"I appreciated his intelligence and political skill. I never allowed anyone to criticize him in front of me," Juan Carlos writes, which has drawn widespread criticism.
Spain's Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, thinks it is "sick that anyone today still tries to defend or justify the dictator". Franco's totalitarian rule (1939–1975) involved political repression, censorship and executions. Over two million regime critics were imprisoned, tens of thousands of Spaniards were killed and another around 200,000 died of starvation.
In his book, Juan Carlos also reveals what happened when his little brother Alfonso was killed in 1956, aged just 14. Juan Carlos, then 18, says that the brothers were playing with a gun that they didn't know was loaded.
"We had no idea there was a bullet left in the chamber. A shot was fired into the air, the bullet bounced and hit my brother in the middle of the forehead. He died in our father's arms," Juan Carlos writes, according to The Telegraph.
