Spain's new constitution of 1978, three years after Franco's death, divided Franco's centralised country into 17 regions, granted privileges to those parts (the Basque country, Catalonia and Galicia) with historic identities of their own, made Castilian pre-eminent as Spain's official language, but gave other languages principally Catalan, Basque, Valencian (a dialect of Catalan) and Galician equal status in areas where they were spoken.

ECONOMIST: Catalan zeal