Pro-independence parties obtained 26 out of 54 seats in the New Caledonia Congress at the election held 12 May in the French overseas territory. Despite having progressed by one seat (in 2014 they won 25), the secessionist parties remain 2 short of the absolute majority. The election was the first in New Caledonia after the 2018 self-determination referendum, in which 43% of voters —more than expected by opinion polls— supported secession from France. Keep reading

The growth of Catalan and Basque parties is an important aspect of the April 28 Spanish Parliament election, in which the Spanish socialists won a relative majority and will thus need to seek support from other parties to form a majority. As regards stateless peoples, the vote left some other important news, such as the failure of Spanish right-wing parties in Catalonia and Euskadi, a relative recovery of the Galician Nationalist Bloc, or the persistence of votes to the parties of the Canary Islands. Keep reading

The Public Office of the Catalan Language (Oficina Pública de la Llengua Catalana, OPLC) should be given birth in 2019 after the French central authorities have belatedly unlocked 100,000 euros to launch it. The move has been announced by Occitania region President Carole Delga and Northern Catalan department of Pyrénées-Orientales President Hermeline Malherbe. The OPLC is expected to act as a catalyst for a more ambitious linguistic policy for the Catalan language in Northern Catalonia. Nevertheless, doubts and challenges remain, Association for the Teaching of Catalan (Associació per a l’Ensenyament del Català, APLEC) President Alà Baylac-Ferrer says. Keep reading

In 1997, Joenia Wapichana became the first indigenous woman in Brazil to obtain a law degree. Eleven years later, she was the first indigenous person ever to defend a case in the Supreme Court. And in October 2018 Joenia earned yet another distinction, becoming the first indigenous woman elected to the National Congress. Her 8,491 votes elected her to one of the eight seats destined to her home state, Roraima. The only time Brazil had an indigenous congressman was in 1986 — Mario Juruna, of Xavante ethnicity, was elected in 1983. Keep reading