Located in a far-flung corner of the south Atlantic, the Islas Malvinas, or Falkland Islands, are at the heart of an age-old rift between Argentina and the UK. Back in 1982, this escalated into a ten-week war between the two countries. Four decades on, Argentina's defeat against the British remains a gaping wound for the South American nation. More than eight out of ten Argentinians say their government should continue to claim sovereignty over the islands. FRANCE 24's Éléonore Vanel, Nicolas Flon and Flavian Charuel report.
Some 400 kilometres east of Argentina lies a rocky archipelago known to the UK as the Falkland Islands and to Argentina as the Islas Malvinas. A series of nations have had settlements there, including even France, but British authority was reasserted back in 1833, and the people who live and work there still consider themselves British. Yet Argentina continues to claim the islands as its own.
This tension led Argentina's military dictator Leopoldo Galtieri to invade the islands in the spring of 1982, amid his declining popularity at home. Just three days later, a British naval task force ordered by then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher set sail from the UK to take them back. The conflict lasted only ten weeks, ending with an Argentinian surrender that returned the islands to British control. In total, 649 Argentinian military personnel, 255 British and three islanders were killed in the hostilities.
Diplomatic ties between the UK and Argentina were only restored in 1990, but there has since been no change in either side's position on the islands. Argentina has even declared them part of its land – this is written into the 1994 constitution – even though to the British they remain a self-governing British Overseas Territory. Forty years after the Falklands War, passions on both sides still run high.
