The holding of celebrations in honor of the Spanish dictator prompted a reaction from Paris senator Ian Brossat.
Days after a mass was held in Verdun in memory of Marshal Pétain, new controversy surrounds another mass held in honor of Spanish dictator Franco.
The celebration will be hosted on Saturday, November 29, by the Cercle Franco-Hispanique at the Notre-Dame de Consolation chapel in Paris’ 8th arrondissement. In its press release, the association invited participants to “reflect”, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the death of General Franco and the assassination in 1936 of José Antonio Primo de Rivera, founder of the Falange, a fascist organization that fought the Spanish Republican Party during the civil war.
The service will be celebrated by Father Alain Lorans, of the Saint-Pie-X Priestly Fraternity, a congregation of traditionalist priests, before lunch at registration.
“Rehabilitation warning for extreme right groups”
The holding of the mass in honor of General Franco, who ruled Spain with an iron fist between 1936 and 1975, quickly sparked a reaction from Paris senator Ian Brossat. “This ceremony aims to celebrate figures whose legacies are inseparable from violence, oppression and rejection of democracy,” wrote the elected communist in a press release shared with X.
Mass in tribute to a dictator and fascist in Paris.
You are not dreaming. After paying tribute to Pétain at Verdun, they wanted to pay tribute to Franco
These mobs must be banned: in Paris the extreme right must not come to power, we will not surrender. pic.twitter.com/udggxfs6DE
— Ian Brossat (@IanBrossat) November 18, 2025
On November 15, another mass was celebrated in honor of Philippe Pétain, in Verdun. “Repeated attempts at the rehabilitation of far-right groups’ memorials have a clear goal: belittling and glorifying authoritarian, fascist or criminal regimes,” continued the senator who called for a ban on masses on November 29. “In Paris, the capital of Resistance and anti-fascism, such initiatives are unacceptable », added Ian Brossat.
The Franco-Hispanic Circle was founded in 1984 by Olivier Grimaldi, previously an Action Française activist, with the aim of “maintaining close and fraternal relations between French citizens and nationalists as well as the various components of the Spanish national movement », specifies the association’s website. He wanted to make “the thoughts and actions of José Antonio Primo de Rivera known in France”, whom he described on his website as “a martyr of the Iberian nationalist struggle” and a victory of the Francoists “in the Spanish crusade against Bolshevism. » Historians’ estimates of the repression carried out by the Franco regime vary between 200,000 and 400,000 deaths.
Contacted by Le Parisien, the Cercle Franco-Hispanique did not respond to our request.
Currently, the authorities have not reacted to his holding this controversial position. Regarding the mass in honor of Pétain in Verdun, prosecutors announced the opening of an investigation to charge crimes against humanity against Jacques Boncompain, president of the Association to defend the memory of Marshal Pétain.
