South Atlantic strate

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EVEN a year after the bloody eyents in the South Atlantic, the 'Falklands Factor' is a crúcial component in Thatcher's electoral support.

But the outcome of the war -Thatcher's Fortress Falklands' policy - has long term implications for British and world imperialism lasting far beyond this A recent article by Simon Winchester in the Sunday Times points out that millions of pounds are being spent building up both the Falklands and Ascension Island as major strategic outposts in the South Atlantic.

As much as £38 million is allocated to a two-phase development of the Ascension air base, which is also being equipped with long range radar systems. On ine Falklands itsell, wige Winchester describes as a new radar dome rising on Mount Kent - Project Zeus" has a range of over 1,000 miles: "Yet Argentine Patagonia is but 200 miles away"

Winchester explains that:

"The Falklands are starting to assume a more global defence role. "Diego Garcia South" was how one air force man privately described them, referring to the Americans' big island base in the Indian Ocean.

The costs of all this are enormous. Each 40 ton planeload of cargo received in the Falklands costs an estimated £750,000 to deliver. Why this vast expenditure for a previously forgotten handful of islanders? Winchester replies:

"As colonies, the Falklands and Ascension can seem like twin Black Holes, swallowing money as fast as it can be printed. As strategic bases,, the costs seem more forgivable.

Yet where is any Labour pledge to scrap this vast scheme and withdraw imperialist troops from the South Atlantic? As before, the Labour leadership is being carried along in Thatcher's slipstream.

French higher education has long been in chaos by anybody's reckoning. Apart from a few institutions which demand special qualifications, access to higher education is open to anyone who passes the school-leaving exam, the baccalaureat. But then the system is run so that almost half the students drop out in their first two years at university.

The new reorganisation proposals from education minister Alain Savary follow pretty much in direct line from the measures and proposals from previous right wing governments since the 1960s.

Savary's major proposals are:

1) Removal of minor obstacles to access to higher education.

2. Introduction of a new practical initiatives.

The Communist Party UNEF has generally supported the Savary proposals (the CP has ministers in the government). UNEF-ID has called some demonstrations, but the attitude of its PCI leadership has generally been to 'seek clarification' from the government.

But the problem is not only, or even mainly, to do with the activity or inactivity of the left student organisations. At the end of March the Socialist-led government announced its second austerity plan: tax increases, an additional tax in the form of of a 1983 June No 26 the women's campaign Movement called a one-hour strike on May 18.

Paralysed

The Socialist-led government has been paralysed and thrown into disarray by the logic of trying to administer the system in the midst of capitalist crisis. The French workers' movement needs to stop this paralysis spreading down to the organised workers -to re-mobilise for working class demands, and thus to be able to win over to its side the sections of the middle class who currently are being thrust into the hands of the Right.