Supporting the theocracy - 2

Stalin is not the only dictator who is still being celebrated. A debate in the European Parliament this week heard the regimes of Spain's Franco and Portugal's Salazar being praised. The Polish MEP Maciej Giertych said Europe lacks such statesmen today. Spanish Green MEP Raul Romeva who is no fan of Franco's. I first asked the Polish MEP what was so good about these dictators...

This is what I found on the BBC website, after hearing a piece on Europe Today last week (7 Jul) - Dictatorial legacies. The Polish MEP said that 'the civil war was started by the fact that the socialists took power in Spain ... and directed their policy against the Catholic church and this was a very murderous approach that they took towards the Spanish...' I emailed the programme:

In fact, there were no ministers from the socialist party (PSOE) in the Popular Front government between the elections of February 1936 and the General's uprising of 17-18 July. The socialists did not join the government until October.

The Right's case, greatly exaggerated by their newspapers, was that Spain was becoming ungovernable...
What party is this Polish MEP from?

See also Mark Mardell's Europe diary: 'Now Mr Giertych is not some marginal figure. He was a presidential candidate and his party is a coalition partner in the Polish government. His son doubles as deputy prime minister and education minister.' Judging by the comments at the end, his pro-Franco position is quite widespread in Eastern Europe.