Spain’s conservative opposition on Tuesday accused José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the prime minister, of dividing Spaniards with a proposed law that would rehabilitate victims of the 1936-39 Spanish civil war and of General Francisco Franco’s 40-year dictatorship.

After months of negotiations, the ruling Socialist party announced that it had enough support among smaller political groups for a law to honour the civil war’s half-million dead. The law will also pay tribute to countless Spaniards persecuted by the Franco regime, and to the priests and nuns murdered by Republican supporters during the war.