[mbaine]

"We should remember that Catalonia had its own language forbidden to even speak in the street for 40 years during Franco's dictatorship."

We should remember this is a false myth. Catalan was never banned. There were many works in literature and music using Catalan as language during Franco's dictatorship (1939-1975).

For instance, you can check the full list of works that won the Lletra d'Or awards, to the best year work written in Catalan. It started in 1956. Josep Pla, one of the most importan Catalan writters won that award in 1957.

https://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premi_Lletra_d%27Or

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josep_Pla

And here you can watch Joan Manuel Serrat, singing in Catalan on TVE (the Public Spanish national television). That was in 1968.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6da-yrtBIY

What Franco did was to ban Catalan language from public institutions.

[kuroikyu]

> What Franco did was to ban Catalan language from public institutions.

Like schools. An entire generation missed out on learning Catalan at school like my own mother. Call it whatever you want but that to me feels like forbidding a language.