I must confess I haven’t read much about him, and apparently you have. So perhaps you could tell me. Since Spain is relatively homogeneous, with few minorities to pick on, did Franco ever do anything unpleasant to the Basques and the Gypsies, or descendants of novocristos? Other than crushing dissenters, which, if I can believe Hemingway in For Whom The Bell Tolls, the leftists in Spain reciprocated, and disregarding an election, he doesn’t seem to have had much opportunity to do nasty fascist stuff.
He probably did "something unpleasant", but I don't know the particulars. One thing is that he practically banned all languages other than Spanish, -- and Spain is not at all naturally homogeneous, so that left a mark. He considered his duty to re-unify Spain not only ideologically but ethnically.