Contesting Indochina: French Remembrance between Decolonization and Cold War

By M. Kathryn Edwards

How does a nation come to terms with losing a war—especially an overseas war whose purpose is fervently contested? In the years after the war, how does such a nation construct and reconstruct its identity and values? For the French in Indochina, the stunning defeat at Dien Bien Phu ushered in the violent process of decolonization and a fraught reckoning with a colonial past. Contesting Indochina is the first in-depth study of the competing and intertwined narratives of the Indochina War. It analyzes the layers of French remembrance, focusing on state-sponsored commemoration, veterans’ associations, special-interest groups, intellectuals, films, and heated public disputes. These narratives constitute the ideological battleground for contesting the legacies of colonialism, decolonization, the Cold War, and France’s changing global status.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Release date: Jun 14, 2016
• ISBN: 9780520963467

M. Kathryn Edwards

M. Kathryn Edwards is assistant professor of modern French history at Tulane University.

Book preview

Contesting Indochina

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FROM INDOCHINA TO VIETNAM: REVOLUTION AND WAR IN A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

Edited by Fredrik Logevall and Christopher E. Goscha

1. Assuming the Burden: Europe and the American Commitment to War in Vietnam, by Mark Atwood Lawrence

2. Indochina: An Ambiguous Colonization, 1858 – 1954, by Pierre Brocheux and Daniel Hémery

3. Vietnam 1946: How the War Began, by Stein Tønnesson

4. Imperial Heights: Dalat and the Making and Undoing of French Indochina, by Eric T. Jennings

5. Catholic Vietnam: A Church from Empire to Nation, by Charles Keith

6. Vietnam: State, War, and Revolution, 1945 – 1946, by David G. Marr

7. Hanoi’s Road to the Vietnam War, 1954 – 1965, by Pierre Asselin

8. Contesting Indochina: French Remembrance between Decolonization and Cold War, by M. Kathryn Edwards

Contesting Indochina

FRENCH REMEMBRANCE BETWEEN DECOLONIZATION AND COLD WAR

M. Kathryn Edwards

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University of California Press

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© 2016 by The Regents of the University of California

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Edwards, M. Kathryn, 1979– author.

Title: Contesting Indochina : French remembrance between decolonization and Cold War / M. Kathryn Edwards.

    Other titles: From Indochina to Vietnam ; v. 8.

    Description: Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2016] | "2016 | Series: From Indochina to Vietnam ; 8 | Includes bibliographical references and index.

    Identifiers: LCCN 2016009422 (print) | LCCN 2016010585 (ebook)

    ISBN 9780520288607 (book/cloth : alk. paper)

    ISBN 9780520288614 (book/paper : alk. paper)

    ISBN 9780520963467 (EBook Format/ePub + PDF)

    Subjects: LCSH: Indochinese War, 1946–1954. | Decolonization— Indochina. | France—Colonies—Indochina.

    Classification: LCC DS553.7 .E37 2016 (print) | LCC DS553.7 (ebook) |

    DDC 959.05/3—dc23

    LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016009422

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For Chris

In France, one cannot address the history of colonialism, of anticolonialism, of communism, or of anticommunism, without provoking—or unleashing—some passion.

ALAIN RUSCIO, Les communistes français et la guerre d’Indochine, 1944–1954

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations

Institutional Acronyms

Acknowledgments

Map of France

Introduction

1 • French Indochina from Conquest to Commemoration

2 • Remembrance and Rehabilitation: The ANAI and the Anticommunist Narrative

3 • From Activism to Remembrance: The Anticolonial Narrative

4 • Morts pour la France? Official Commemoration of the Indochina War

5 • The Forgotten of Vietnam-sur-Lot: Repatriate Camps as Sites of Colonial Memory

6 • La sale affaire: Collaboration, Resistance, and the Georges Boudarel Affair

7 • Missing in Action: The Indochina War and French Film

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

ILLUSTRATIONS

1. Bust of Ho Chi Minh, Parc Montreau, Montreuil

2. Rolf Rodel’s monument at Dien Bien Phu

3. Bas-relief on the Monument to the Dead of Indochina (1983), Fréjus

4. Memorial to the Indochina Wars, Fréjus

5. Memorial wall (1996), Fréjus

6. Permanent exhibit of the Memorial

7. Entrance to the Reception Center for the French of Indochina (CAFI)

8. Barracks and water tower at the CAFI

9. Brigadier General de Castries’s bunker, Dien Bien Phu

10. Military cemetery in Dien Bien Phu

INSTITUTIONAL ACRONYMS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book has been a long time in the making and could not have come to fruition without the extensive support of many friends, family members, colleagues, and organizations. Norman Ingram’s patience as I muddled my way from a general interest in French historical memory to a focus on the Indochina War as a master’s student was essential to the genesis of this project. Eric Jennings has provided unqualified support for this project since agreeing to supervise my doctoral dissertation; he has read countless iterations of the chapters in this book, long after I completed the dissertation, and has consistently provided incredibly thoughtful feedback. I could not have asked for a better advisor and colleague. Nhung Tuyet Tran has been a mentor for my research and professional development since I began my doctoral studies, and secured both the funding and research contacts that made it possible for me to undertake a research trip to Vietnam. Christopher Goscha has provided invaluable advice, guidance, and feedback on this project as it evolved from a dissertation to a monograph. Along with Fredrik Logevall, he strongly encouraged me to submit the manuscript for consideration in the present series; I am grateful to both of them for their sustained support of this project. Pierre Brocheux provided much-needed advice and a sense of direction when this project was just getting off the ground and also shared materials from his personal collection. Alain Ruscio provided valuable insights and contacts when I was undertaking new research on the anticolonial narrative. Agathe Larscher-Goscha generously shared unpublished conference papers that were immensely helpful for the section on the faculty of the University of Paris VII. Judith DeGroat, David Del Testa, Nathalie Dessens, Susan Dixon, Christina Firpo, Ruth Ginio, Caroline Herbelin, Charles Keith, Jean-François Klein, and Ken Orosz have all provided critical leads, feedback, and encouragement.

I have presented my work in many venues and am grateful for all of the feedback I received. I was fortunate to have presented my first conference paper from this project at an annual meeting of the French Colonial Historical Society, which is an exceptionally welcoming and vibrant intellectual community. I have presented material from virtually every chapter of this book to audiences at FCHS meetings, and my thanks go to copanelists, commentators, and audience members for their remarks. In Toronto the French History Seminar was a warm and inviting forum for discussing and presenting research, and I thank the organizers and participants for their comments on my analysis of the Georges Boudarel affair. I would also like to thank the members of the Modern European Reading Group at the University of Toronto for their constructive criticism of dissertation chapters.

I am grateful to the institutions and agencies that provided generous funding for my research, to the archivists who provided extensive guidance, and to the associations who opened their collections (and sometimes even their homes) to me. My doctoral research was made possible by the financial support of the University of Toronto, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Leonard and Kathleen O’Brien Humanitarian Trust. I was able to undertake subsequent research thanks to a fellowship with the Memory and Memorialization Program cosponsored by the Centre national de recherche scientifique and New York University. François Guillemot at the Institut d’Asie Orientale kindly granted me access to the Fonds Georges Boudarel, then still in the process of being catalogued. Sandrine Lacombe and Pascal de Toffoli at the Archives départementales du Lot-et-Garonne, Lucette Vachier at the Centre d’Archives d’Outre-mer, Sébastien Colombo at the Archives départementales Seine-Saint-Denis, and Éric Lafon at the Musée de l’Histoire vivante also provided access to crucial materials and guidance. I am also immensely grateful to Daniel Frêche, Nina Sinouretty, and the other members of the Coordination des Eurasiens de Paris; General Guy Simon and the members of the Association nationale des anciens and amis de l’Indochine; and Marie-Hélène Lavallard and the Association d’amitié franco-vietnamienne. I would also like to thank my former colleagues at Amherst College, Bucknell University, and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette for their support. Bucknell students Marcus Hernandez and Maddie Harrison provided significant assistance on various aspects of the manuscript.

At the University of California Press, I would like to thank Niels Hooper and his editorial team for their excellent work. Special thanks go to Bradley Depew and Kate Hoffman for shepherding me through the production process with such care and attention, and to Jeff Wyneken for his excellent copyediting. I am also deeply grateful to my two anonymous readers, whose insights, feedback, and suggestions have significantly improved this book.

Finally, this project would not have been possible without the unflagging support of friends and family. Bayne MacMillan, whose classroom impersonation of a flying buttress I will never forget, encouraged my passion for the study of history, beginning in the tenth grade. Through countless coffee breaks and shared meals, Claire Eldridge and Sara Barker were wonderful companions on the journey through the ins and outs of French archives during my research year in Paris. Erin Hochman provided regular and insightful comments on many of the chapters of this book along with a healthy dose of encouragement. My fellow French historians in Toronto, Valerie Deacon and Laura Godsoe, with whom I shared many a delicious meal and late night during my graduate studies, have been an essential source of moral and intellectual support. Ukupa McNally, Kate Parizeau, Missy Roser, and Jamie Sedgwick have all been cheerleaders along the way. My parents, Peter Edwards and Kathy Hamer, instilled in me a love of history and of French language and culture. They, along with my sister Meghan, have been unfailing in their encouragement. And finally, this book is for Chris, who accompanied me on seemingly endless research trips, provided invaluable editorial feedback, and was always willing to act as a sounding board, even at the most inconvenient times.

An early version of chapter 1 appeared as Traître au colonialisme? The Georges Boudarel Affair and the Memory of the Indochina War in French Colonial History 11 (2010), published by Michigan State University Press. Sections of chapter 2 appeared as The National Association of Veterans and Friends of Indochina, the Commemoration of the Indochina War and the ‘Positive’ Role of Colonialism in Hagar: Studies in Culture, Polity and Identities 9, no. 2 (2010), 30–48, published by Ben Gurion University of the Negev.

France

Introduction

Indeed, with memory as with strategy, the French are often one war behind. The point of reference [for the Algerian War] is not the forgotten war in Indochina, or even the Great War of 1914–1918. [ . . . ] The memory of the Algerian War has more in common with that of the Second World War: bitter memories of defeat and less than glorious events that people would prefer to bury, undercurrents of civil war, and disgraceful acts perpetrated by fellow countrymen.¹

ROBERT FRANK

THE FRENCH INDOCHINA WAR presents an immediate dilemma for the scholar of historical memory: it is a forgotten war and yet has left indelible traces in the French imaginary. It has not captured public attention as have the German Occupation and the Algerian War; and while the Algerian War is the war without a name (la guerre sans nom), the Indochina War has rightly been described as the overshadowed war (la guerre occultée).² Explanations for this state of affairs are readily available: it was a faraway conflict; it was met with the general indifference of the metropolitan public; it was fought not by conscripts but by a professional army in which colonial troops, local auxiliaries, and the Foreign Legion outnumbered metropolitan French soldiers. It was fought in a colony with a relatively small settler population (in distinction to Algeria).³ It was largely overshadowed by the Second World War, which preceded it, and the Algerian War, which followed it, and that despite its contentious nature among government officials, political groups, and intellectuals. Its identity was lost among these and other wars. It was eclipsed by the American war in Vietnam with respect to media coverage, global interest, and large-scale protest; and the American Vietnam War is often understood in France as being the equivalent of the Franco-Algerian war without any apparent awareness that France actually had its own Vietnam War.⁴ Lastly the Indochina War is rarely presented as a worthwhile subject of investigation despite acknowledgment of its forgotten nature, as the epigraph to this introduction shows.⁵

Certainly the war was not utterly forgotten. Serge Tignères and Alain Ruscio have demonstrated that the battle of Dien Bien Phu has remained a potent symbol over the decades since the French defeat.⁶ Like Sedan and Verdun it was disastrous: Ruscio even calls it the greatest blunder in centuries and centuries of strategy.⁷ Whatever prominence Dien Bien Phu has acquired stands in sharp contrast to the general obscurity of the Indochina War as a whole. And indeed the battle’s mythical status may help to explain that obscurity.⁸ The conflict has seen no resurgence in public awareness as there was for France’s other black holes of memory. There was no breaking of the mirror for Indochina as there was for the Vichy period.⁹

And yet comparable memorial processes and commemorative practices abound. Veterans and various members of the political right and extreme right have held commemorative events since the 1950s and have actively lobbied the government for greater public and official recognition of those who fought in the war.¹⁰ Groups with a fundamentally different understanding of the war, most often from the political left and extreme left, have staged commemorations of their own and have sought to challenge what they deem to be the colonial nostalgia of the right. Debate over the Indochina War and the colonial legacy in Southeast Asia has typically eluded public awareness even as such debate has on occasion erupted onto the public stage.

Although its significance as a historical event and as the subject of historical remembrance has often been overlooked, recent scholarship has refocused attention on the Indochina War as a turning point in the histories of France, decolonization, and the emergence of the Cold War. The Indochina War sat squarely at the intersection of the grand political forces that drove world affairs during the century;¹¹ more specifically, the Cold War and decolonization collided most intensely at first in Asia.¹² These dual political forces make the Indochina War an excellent case study for historical remembrance: it provides the opportunity to engage with and provide new perspectives on the politics of remembrance of both French decolonization and the Cold War, and more importantly of the overlap between these contexts. The Algerian War has dominated scholarship on the remembrance of French decolonization, and little scholarship exists on the remembrance of the Cold War in Western Europe.¹³ This book helps to redress the imbalance.

The remembrance of the Indochina War is an integral part of the study of the Cold War and of French decolonization. The intersection of these two contexts complicates our understanding of both the events themselves and the ways in which they have been remembered. One context typically overshadows the other. A focus on decolonization often causes the ideological framework of the Cold War to recede into the background, while emphasis on Cold War discourse frequently obfuscates the colonial dimension of the conflict. The characterization of the war as a struggle to protect the Indochinese from communism distracts from the murkiness of the aims and tactics of colonial war; such mischaracterization was not possible to the same extent in the Algerian context.¹⁴ The members of the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN; Front de libération nationale) were cast as terrorists and rebels much like the Viet Minh, but whereas the FLN was often linked with global communism by its detractors, the Viet Minh unmistakably represented it. The overt connection to communism subsumed the Indochina War into a broader global conflict that was (and often still is) understood as a clear-cut confrontation between the forces of good and evil. This study highlights the influence of Cold War rhetoric and offers a new perspective to the growing historiography of the remembrance of empire.

Beyond the Cold War framework, the unique memorial processes of the Indochina War deserve further study. This traumatic event has not experienced a real resurgence in the public sphere on the model of the Vichy period or the Algerian War.¹⁵ This neglect should not be taken for insignificance, since scholars now recognize the complex spectrum between remembering and forgetting as well as the social, cultural, and political manifestations of silence.¹⁶ This study demonstrates that even in the absence of sustained public engagement memory work (travail de mémoire) is an ongoing process. Scholars have come to understand the model of repression followed by overexposure as the normative model for the collective remembrance of contentious events. The Indochina War offers a counter-model to this tendency, thereby enriching our understanding of the workings of collective remembrance.

Public and political engagement with the history and legacies of the Indochina War has ebbed and flowed in the sixty years following the end of the conflict. The stakes are high for those actors and interest groups who are most invested in the remembrance of the Indochina War. They have long lobbied for more commemorative events and for greater acceptance of their narrative of events. But without a strong public investment in the subject the dominant narratives have changed little. Rather, old ideological divisions have continued to play themselves out in commemorative arenas. Certain aspects of this ideological division are reminiscent of the American remembrance of the Vietnam War, which remains divided between those who are convinced that the struggle against communism had been a noble cause, and those who maintain that the war had been an illegitimate conflict.¹⁷

This book examines the ongoing social and cultural impacts of the Indochina War on French society.¹⁸ It casts its net widely: state-sponsored commemorative sites and practices, media coverage related to the war, film, cultural organizations, and museums. Moreover, the book delves into the lived experience of the consequences of war through the analysis of several veteran and settler associations, as well as the so-called repatriate camps that as of 1955 housed French citizens of Indochinese origin.¹⁹ The book is divided into chapters that reflect established categories in the field of historical remembrance, such as official memory, popular memory, and cultural memory, yet it also demonstrates the considerable overlap of these categories. Each chapter shows how various agents including the state, veterans, filmmakers, scholars, and politicians shape specific narratives, or myths, about the war. As Samuel Hynes argues, such myths help to make sense of [a war’s] incoherences and contradictions.²⁰ As such these myths are not mere accounts of the war but also reflect contemporary political and cultural concerns. Furthermore, the contents of these myths cannot be isolated from their construction: story and way of telling converge, tone determining the selection of events and events determining tone, until a complete, coherent story emerges.²¹

The remembrance of the Indochina War in France has actually been characterized not by a single myth or story but rather by two distinct and competing narratives, which reflect the dual contexts of decolonization and Cold War. One account maintains that the Indochina War was first and foremost a struggle against communism; the other, that the war was motivated by a desire to reconquer the colony and to thwart legitimate national independence movements. The proponents of each seek to impose their interpretation as the standard for collective remembrance. Furthermore, while these narratives appear to separate the colonial from the ideological aspects of the conflict, the two in fact are inextricably linked. As a result the subject of controversy or debate is never solely the Indochina War but inevitably comes to include the colonial system and the imperial project.

The first of these narratives, which I call the anticommunist narrative, finds the greatest support from veterans²² and members of the political right and extreme right as well as some members of the Vietnamese diaspora; it has also had significant influence on state-sponsored commemoration. It focuses overwhelmingly on the Cold War context of the conflict often to the exclusion of its colonial dimension.²³ The French expeditionary corps is depicted as having fought alongside full-fledged Indochinese partners to defend them from the horrors of a totalitarian system.²⁴ The Viet Minh are understood as fighting not for independence from oppressive French rule but to establish communist dominance. Many proponents of this perspective seek to rehabilitate France’s colonial reputation, not only by portraying the French forces as fighting to defend their longtime colonial partners but also by contrasting life under colonial control with life under communist control. The plight of refugees fleeing the peninsula in the mid- to late 1970s following the establishment of communist regimes is frequently used as evidence for the claim that the French had been good caretakers. Former air ambulance nurse Geneviève de Galard articulated this perspective quite succinctly in a 1992 interview:

It’s horrible to think that it took the boat people and the fall of the Berlin wall to open the eyes of those last few who still believed that in 1954 the Indochina War was a colonial war. For my part, I never felt that I was participating in a colonialist battle, but rather that I was helping the Vietnamese combat communism—a war of liberation.²⁵

In addition to this emphasis on anticommunism and a Franco-Indochinese partnership, a third major feature of this narrative is the heroism of those who fought for the French cause. In the postwar period the heroism of French troops was transformed into a narrative of victimhood and even martyrdom.²⁶ The claim of heroism is reinforced by the belief that the French expeditionary corps was in fact fighting to protect the Indochinese people, as well as by the conviction that the military had been all but abandoned by the government and the French public. This claim of a general abandonment is, to be sure, not entirely unwarranted. The succession of French governments in power from 1946 to 1954 did not elaborate consistent and clear objectives for the war effort, and there were frequent miscommunications, even outright clashes, between authorities in Paris and civilian and military authorities in Saigon and Hanoi. The general public was both ill informed and often indifferent to the war and those who were fighting it. Additionally, and not unlike the experiences reported by their American counterparts, many veterans felt victimized by protesters as they were returning from or departing for Indochina.²⁷ They claim to have been verbally or physically attacked and maintain that even the wounded were subjected to this treatment.²⁸

The proponents of the anticommunist narrative—veterans, in particular—have also tended to emphasize the fact that the war and those who fought it are often overlooked or forgotten. For them this extends a pattern of victimization begun during the war itself: first, soldiers were the victims of the French state and the metropolitan public, who at best failed to support them and at worst jeopardized their lives with their indifference (or in the extreme, by committing sabotage). Second, they were the victims of the Viet Minh, especially as prisoners of war who faced the dire conditions of the POW camps—camps which have often been compared to those of other totalitarian regimes. Third, they have been the victims of a nationwide forgetting (oubli) since the conclusion of the war, a theme evident in Erwan Bergot’s Secret Services in Indochina: The Forgotten Heroes (1979), Louis Stien’s The Forgotten Soldiers (1993), and Alain Vincent’s Indochina: The Forgotten War (2007).²⁹ These claims of victimhood can be further reinforced by the nature of asymmetrical warfare, which defined the first years of the conflict: with limited military equipment the Viet Minh relied primarily on guerrilla tactics to target French soldiers and civilians. The French, though much better equipped, nonetheless resorted to counterinsurgency measures. As Stef Scagliola has argued with respect to the Dutch-Indonesian War (1945–49), the problematic categorisation of victims and perpetrators³⁰ and the blurred lines of guerrilla warfare can facilitate the casting of veterans as victims rather than occupiers. Moreover, the use of guerrilla tactics on the part of the enemy allows soldiers to justify their own use of violence (and avoid taking responsibility for any excesses).³¹

Standing in stark opposition to this anticommunist narrative is the anticolonial narrative, which characterizes the conflict as a dirty war (sale guerre) of colonial reconquest on the French side, and as a war for Indochinese (primarily Vietnamese) independence on the other side. This interpretation, which has been maintained primarily by members of the political left and extreme left,³² also tends to highlight the abuses of the colonial system and celebrates both anticolonial and antiwar activism. Antiwar protestors like Henri Martin and Raymonde Dien play an important symbolic role in the anticolonial narrative. Ho Chi Minh is often admired—occasionally even lionized—and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) is cast as the legitimate representation of the will of the Vietnamese people. There is a tendency among some proponents of this narrative to overlook the dark side of the DRV, including the devastating impact of land reform and the repression of dissidents. In contrast to the anticommunist narrative, which is maintained by groups and individuals who are quite united in their views and their commitments to lobbying efforts, the anticolonial narrative is promoted by far more disparate parties. Some of the groups and individuals who fall under the broad umbrella of the anticolonial narrative have close connections with the French Communist Party (PCF; Parti communiste français), which was a dominant force behind the antiwar movement. Though the PCF has not maintained an active commemorative agenda on par with its commitment to the antiwar cause, it has nonetheless supported the activities of these affiliated actors.

These two narratives of the Indochina War are clearly and fundamentally at odds. For many, Cold War politics continue to play themselves out despite the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet bloc. Moreover, since this collapse there has been a persistent indictment of communism from some quarters and an attempt to quantify its victims. In the absence of any legal reckoning—an equivalent to the Nuremberg trials for Nazism, for example—this project has manifested itself in other forms. The unremitting attacks in the early 1990s on Georges Boudarel, a university professor accused of having crossed over to the Viet Minh (see chapter 6), and the staunch anticommunism of the National Association of Veterans and Friends of Indochina (ANAI; see chapter 2) both illustrate this trend. In 1997 French historian Stéphane Courtois edited a volume entitled The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression.³³ This highly controversial book garnered considerable criticism, much of which targeted Courtois’s claim that globally, communism had caused the deaths of one hundred million people.³⁴ While his introduction deliberately courted controversy, the other scholars who contributed chapters sought to present academically rigorous analyses of communist systems around the world.³⁵ Though equally critical of communist regimes, this scholarship should be distinguished from those who were in many ways continuing to wage Cold War battles; rather than being motivated purely by ideology, these scholars have sought to provide informed critiques of the regimes in question.

Similarly, debates over the legitimacy and impacts of the colonial project have carried over to the postcolonial period and have arguably grown more heated. The fundamental disagreement over the nature of the Indochina War as either a battle against communism or a war of colonial reconquest has contributed to the extensive debates over the relative merits of the colonial project and its putative resurrection in 1945. The legacy of colonialism in France has gained increasing prominence in public discourse in recent years. Arguments have run the gamut from the belief that France has insufficiently addressed the detrimental side of its colonial policy, to calls to put an end to a culture of colonial repentance. In 2003, Éditions Robert Laffont published The Black Book of Colonialism, edited by Marc Ferro, which was clearly intended as a counterpart to Courtois’s volume. Though far less controversial, the book’s motivations were nonetheless implicated in a broader debate over how to adequately come to terms with the colonial past. Historian of French colonial Algeria Daniel Lefeuvre, for example, became the standard-bearer for a movement that sought to bring an end to colonial repentance, which was portrayed as an unproductive and even damaging process.³⁶ These opposing beliefs were brought into direct conflict with the passing of the now infamous law of February 2005, which included an article legislating the teaching of the positive aspects of colonialism in schools and universities.³⁷ While this article was later presidentially repealed, it nonetheless prompted considerable controversy among the academic community and the broader public; what is less well known is that veterans of the Indochina War were a driving force in this political offensive.

Not only do the anticommunist and anticolonial narratives reflect old ideological divides, but they have also remained virtually static since their creation in the postwar years. Groups and individuals have been more or less vocal about their interpretations of the war depending on context and circumstances, but even these ebbs and flows have not contributed to any significant questioning or reevaluation of the narratives. The static nature of these narratives is also evident in individual testimony. The case of Geneviève de Galard illustrates this phenomenon, as the narrative about her appears as unchanging as the testimony that she herself relates to the public. Hailed during the siege at Dien Bien Phu as a hero for her medical assistance to and moral support of the wounded, she was also presented as the only woman on site despite the fact that there was at least one group of prostitutes (the women of the bordel militaire de campagne, or BMC) who became makeshift nurses,³⁸ not to mention the Vietnamese women who worked as porters for the Viet Minh troops. Even as this fact became more widely known, de Galard continued to be referred to as the only woman at Dien Bien Phu. This phenomenon reflects the desire to cast the heroes of the story as those who were morally beyond reproach; the question of honoring prostitutes has been contentious. Moreover, the focus on de Galard reveals the construction of a predominantly masculine collective remembrance of the war; she is described, and often describes herself, in nothing but the most feminine terms.³⁹ She was a nurse, a friend, and a mother who helped ease the suffering of the wounded, never a masculine woman fighting alongside the men. Much like the public image thus constructed, de Galard’s narrative of her experiences is remarkably unchanging; her stories are drawn from a select number of incidents such as the story of the young soldier who had lost both arms and a leg but who was convinced that when the war was over he would take her dancing.⁴⁰

This study is structured thematically to allow for thorough investigation of specific themes and vectors of remembrance. Chapter 1 surveys the colonial era, the Indochina War, and the key periods of collective remembrance of the conflict. Given the thematic structure, the latter section is intended to provide a framework in which to situate the remaining chapters. Chapters 2 and 3 establish the contours of the anticommunist and anticolonial narratives through detailed analyses of their primary proponents. Chapter 2 examines the National Association of Veterans and Friends of Indochina (ANAI; Association nationale des anciens et amis de l’Indochine). This was one of the most prominent associations with a connection to French Indochina and the war and was also a driving force behind the anticommunist narrative. Until it disbanded in 2012, the ANAI boasted a uniquely diverse membership of former settlers, veterans, and as of the late 1980s anyone with an interest in the region. The ANAI’s commitment to promoting public awareness of the Indochina War and a positive interpretation of the colonial project through commemorative activities and pedagogical initiatives makes it a particularly illuminating case study for the creation and transmission of collective remembrance. Its narrative of the war aligns with that maintained by many other veterans and members of the political right and the extreme right. In broader terms this case study illustrates the processes by which special interest groups impact official and public discourses.

Chapter 3 provides an analysis of the anticolonial narrative as it has been shaped by diverse groups of individuals and organizations. Each of the actors examined contributes to the interpretation of the war that emphasizes its colonial dimension, justifies it as a legitimate war of independence, and celebrates the antiwar movement in France. Central to the analysis are the following actors: a core group of scholars who have been central to the development of the anticolonial narrative as well as to the development of the field of Southeast Asian studies in France more generally; the left-wing Republican Veterans’ Association (ARAC; Association républicaine des anciens combattants) and its affiliate, the Association of Veterans and Victims of the Indochina War (ACVGI; Association des anciens combattants et victimes de la guerre d’Indochine); the Franco-Vietnamese Friendship Association (AAFV; Association d’amitié franco-vietnamienne), a civilian organization dedicated to developing strong cultural, economic, and diplomatic ties with Vietnam; and the city of Montreuil, a Paris suburb that has maintained a long and unique relationship with Vietnam and features commemorative sites honoring Ho Chi Minh. Although they all pursue individual initiatives, these groups often collaborate. Each year, for example, they participate in a commemoration of the signature of the Geneva Accords, a practice that is vehemently opposed by right-wing veterans and politicians.

Chapters 4 and 5 examine sites of memory, both official and unofficial. Chapter 4 focuses primarily on state-sponsored commemorative sites and activities as well as surveying veterans’ commemorative practices. The state’s involvement in official commemoration of the war began in 1980 with the burial of an unknown soldier and gained momentum with the construction of the Memorial to the Indochina Wars in Fréjus in 1988. Special attention is paid to the impact of lobbying efforts undertaken by the ANAI and other organizations as well as the degree to which state commemoration has been influenced by the anticommunist narrative. Chapter 5 moves beyond official commemoration to address unofficial sites of memory, namely the so-called repatriate camps (camps de rapatriés). These camps, or reception centers (centres d’accueil), were converted military barracks or former workers’ complexes which housed French citizens of Indochinese origin. The small communities of Noyant d’Allier (Allier) and Sainte-Livrade-sur-Lot (Lot-et-Garonne) hosted the two largest centers. Informed by the extensive files on the camps and their residents maintained at the departmental archives of the Allier and the Lot-et-Garonne, as well as material from current and former residents’ associations and the municipal library of Sainte-Livrade, this chapter explores the tangible legacies of the Indochina War and the decolonization of the peninsula through the lived experiences of these repatriates. In addition to examining the camps as sites of memory of French decolonization, the chapter makes contributions to the broader history of