Vintage of Swatantra Ideology

October 22, 1966 on the ground that proliferation of nuclear arms should be hindered, if not forbidden. Some time earlier, General Electric bought up the French computer firm, Machines Bull, against strong opposition from the French Government. The case of the CDC computer made the development of a native computer industry of grave military importance for the French Government, which is now determined to keep it in French hands. It has prepared a detailed plan, 'Plan Calcul', under which the remaining two French computer firms will be merged and will receive 450 million francs for research, development and production, France's policy of converting its dollar holdings into gold has also paid off to some extent. France has now the second biggest gold holding in the non-socialist world of over 5,000 million dollars, against the USA's 13,000 million dollars. Apart from the vicarious pleasure of sitting on so much gold, France has also succeeded in forcing the USA to limit its foreign investment. Hitherto the restrictions on American firms' investment abroad have been voluntary; but they have proved inadequate, and more drastic restrictions are quite on the cards.