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BUENOS AIRES SDI South of the Border Will Latin America have a chance to participate in the Strategic Defense Initiative? Reports here suggest that Argentina’s considerable high-technology resources could prove valuable enough to warrant an effort to share in contracts destined to be negotiated outside the United States. Such speculation comes at a moment when President Raúl Alfonsin, savoring the esteem he has won for restoring democracy in Argentina, is also receiving the congratulations of North American economists for having brought the country’s runaway inflation to a halt.

PARIS Contretemps to Come France, which faces a legislative election in March, is already absorbed in what will happen to the government if, as expected, the Socialist Party loses its majority in the National Assembly, leaving a right-wing coalition in control, confronting Socialist President François Mitterrand. Though the constitution of the Fifth Republic provides for such cases, the political reality of this unprecedented situation would be awkward. The prime minister would answer to parliament, and the president would necessarily assume figurehead status. Mitterrand, for example, could no longer legitimately represent France at Common Market summits and negotiations. The new prime minister, presumably belonging to a right or center-right party, would choose his own government, and the only leverage Mitterrand would continue to possess would be the right to dissolve parliament (once, anyway). But he would not actually be required to step down unless he were defeated in the next presidential election, in 1988. The Fifth Republic, like the Fourth before it, is in for political turmoil.

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BUENOS AIRES SDI South of the Border Will Latin America have a chance to participate in the Strategic Defense Initiative? Reports here suggest that Argentina’s considerable high-technology resources could prove valuable enough to warrant an effort to share in contracts destined to be negotiated outside the United States. Such speculation comes at a moment when President Raúl Alfonsin, savoring the esteem he has won for restoring democracy in Argentina, is also receiving the congratulations of North American economists for having brought the country’s runaway inflation to a halt.

PARIS Contretemps to Come France, which faces a legislative election in March, is already absorbed in what will happen to the government if, as expected, the Socialist Party loses its majority in the National Assembly, leaving a right-wing coalition in control, confronting Socialist President François Mitterrand. Though the constitution of the Fifth Republic provides for such cases, the political reality of this unprecedented situation would be awkward. The prime minister would answer to parliament, and the president would necessarily assume figurehead status. Mitterrand, for example, could no longer legitimately represent France at Common Market summits and negotiations. The new prime minister, presumably belonging to a right or center-right party, would choose his own government, and the only leverage Mitterrand would continue to possess would be the right to dissolve parliament (once, anyway). But he would not actually be required to step down unless he were defeated in the next presidential election, in 1988. The Fifth Republic, like the Fourth before it, is in for political turmoil.