Spaniards back king for telling Chavez to shut up

By Andrew Hay

MADRID (Reuters) - Even Spaniards normally critical of the royal family backed King Juan Carlos on Sunday for telling Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to shut up, but some voiced concerns the monarchy was getting too involved in politics.

The king's flare-up at the Ibero American summit followed days of criticism by leftist Latin American leaders of Spain's political and business influence in former colonies.

The spark came when Chavez repeatedly called Spain's former conservative prime minister, Jose Maria Aznar, a fascist.

Spain's left-leaning El Periodico de Catalunya newspaper, representing a region where anti-royal sentiment runs high, said on Sunday that Chavez's behaviour had been intolerable.

"Maybe it wasn't the best thing to say but the Monarch's fit shows just how much the Venezuelan's diatribe upset the Spanish," the newspaper said in its editorial.

Raising his hand at the fiery Venezuelan president, Juan Carlos had shouted "Why don't you shut up?"

In newspaper editorials, bars and Internet chatrooms, Spaniards said Chavez had been in the wrong.

"What the king said was completely justified, it's overdue," said bank worker Carlos Garcia, adding that he did not consider himself a supporter of either the royal family or Aznar.