Franco was a monarchist at heart.
It was either him or the Communists.
How do your friends feel about the current situation in Spain?
As a Catholic, I would be the first to say that the Church's worst enemies have usually been found among those tepid souls, often middle class and more often upper middle and upper class who crave the acceptance and approval of secular humanist opinion leaders above all else and sell their Faith for such a mess of pottage. They almost always act inadvertently, being too busy whoring after the approval of their enemies to even bother to understand their Faith. Being really Catholic is just too much trouble. Actually practicing Catholicism far more so.
Such people pave the way for socialists, communists, Spanish "Republicans" and other militant atheists to come to power. When the seminarians and priests are murdered and the nuns are raped and murdered, such people bleat: Well, I never meant for THAT to happen! But they enabled it just the same.
A river of Spanish "Republican," communist, socialist and anarchist blood, mingled with a lesser quantity of Catholic blood was necessary to forcibly remove the former group of four tyrant fraternities from power. Franco had the backbone to make that happen and to vow in about 1939 that so long as he drew breath, Spain would never suffer from political movements again. He made that stick. He was the greatest Spaniard patriot of the last century and Reds everywhere despise his memory for it.
Your acquaintances or those like them in Spain who claim Catholicism while rejecting Franco are foolish and thoughtless people, ungrateful for what liberty Spain still enjoys because of Franco.