MADRID, Spain (AP) -- Hundreds of right-wing demonstrators made stiff-armed fascist salutes and shouted insults against gays, Muslims and immigrants at a rally Sunday marking the 30th anniversary of the death of dictator Gen. Francisco Franco.Waving red and yellow Spanish flags with the insignia of the Franco regime's Falange party, the crowd gathered at the Plaza de Oriente, right beside the royal palace in Madrid's old quarter.It is a traditional meeting place for Spaniards nostalgic for Franco's rule, some of them elderly and some so young they had not been born when Franco died November 20, 1975, at the age of 82 after nearly 40 years in power.Representatives of far-right parties from Germany, Italy and France attended the gathering. Police declined to give an estimate of how many people were there, but one officer estimated the crowd at a thousand, or slightly more.At several points during the rally the crowd used foul language to shout insults about Spain's Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.Franco supporters are a small minority in Spain and there is no significant far-right party. The demonstrators ranged in age from the elderly to young couples pushing strollers with babies. Boys in their teens or younger walked around wrapped in the Spanish flag.Blas Pinar, the aging leader of a largely defunct far-right party called New Force, said Franco had transformed Spain from a country riddled with poverty and illiteracy into one with "enviable industrial development" and an acute, unified national identity.Still, Franco today is dismissed as "a mediocre military leader, ambitious and bloodthirsty, a man who enjoyed imposing the death penalty and whose monuments are removed under the cover of night, with hatred," Pinar said.He depicted Spain's post-Franco, democratic constitution of 1978 as the root of all ills in a country he described as riddled with crime, decadence and regional separatism -- mainly from Basques and Catalans -- that threatens to break the country apart.His grandson, Miguel Menendez Pinar, spoke insultingly of homosexuals and Muslims and said: "Spain is dying, or better said, Spain is being murdered." The crowd roared in agreement.Parliament passed a gay marriage bill in June giving full legal recognition to same-sex marriages. The law angered the predominant Roman Catholic Church and Spanish conservatives but polls suggest most Spaniards back it. Spain's Constitutional Court said in October that it would study the conservative opposition Popular Party's appeal against the law.Spain has an estimated 1 million-member Muslim community, many recent immigrants from Morocco.Some demonstrators had spent Saturday night walking from Valle de los Caidos, the mausoleum 30 kilometers (20 miles) outside Madrid where Franco is buried, in a march culminating in the Plaza de Oriente.The square is symbolic for them because during his regime, Franco would address crowds -- many of them bused into the city by the government -- there every year on July 18.He appeared on a balcony of the royal palace to commemorate the day he launched a military uprising against Spain's elected, Republican government in 1936, starting the civil war his fascist forces would eventually win.Angry right-wing demonstrators gathered there in March, taunting police and making fascist salutes, after the Socialist government tore down Madrid's last publicly displayed statue of the late dictator.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.