Things had loosed up considerably, and near the end, Franco himself knew his era would soon pass forever. He told his designated successor Juan Carlos, "you will be able to do things I never could." When I lived there, Catalan was forbidden in schools, daily newspapers and on TV. All the major streets were named after Franco's fascist buddies in the Civil war or after fascist political heroes.
All vestiges of that are now gone. The streets again have their pre-fascist-era names. Street signs are in Catalan, Newspapers are in Catalan. Catalan is the language of the school system. Radio and TV are in Catalan, although stations in Castilian were never shut down or forbidden, and they co-exist peacefully. If you ask a street cop for directions, the first language he will use is Catalan.
And yet, the place has never lost its special character. It remains the capital of Catalunya. It has its identity back. The independence movement has not gained enough traction to succeed basically because the goals the Catalans sought to recover during the dictatorship have long been fulfilled. Separating now would mean a new military, a new currency, a new political infrastructure that Madrid would be in no way responsible for aiding, and an aging physical infastructure that Madrid would rub their hands at no longer being responsible for helping to fix.
The famous Basque author Miguel de Unamuno gave a stinging public rebuttal to a fascist general giving a speech (ending with a perverse "¡Viva la muerte!" ) just before the civil war broke out in 1936. His words were no match for those of Unamuno: "Ustedes vencerán, porque poseen la fuerza bruta. Pero no convencerán." In Castilian, it was a brilliant play on words, using "vencer (conquer)" as a foil to "convencer (persuade)." He said "You will conquer, because you possess brute force, but you will not persuade." Unamuno never lived to see how right he was.
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