ABSTRACT
Francoist coercion in the Basque Country was not only political, it was also cultural and directed against the use of the Basque language. In the meantime, on the other side of the Franco-Spanish border, the new regime made great efforts to eliminate any vestige of the Basque contention through the coercive establishment of a centralized state and the socialization of a Spanish nationalist discourse. The Basque Country of the 1960s and early 1970s was the scene of a second industrial revolution. The acknowledgment of a complex social and political reality in the Basque territories under Francoist rule does not imply any downplaying of the regime’s repression of all political “enemies” as the basic pillar in the dictatorship’s power structure. Francoist coercion in the Basque Country was not only political, it was also cultural and directed against the use of the Basque language.
