After 56 days of bloody fighting, deluges of shells and hand-to-hand clashes, the Battle of Diên Bien Phu ended on May 7, 1954. The French entrenched camp had then fallen, putting an end to the French presence in Indochina France will repatriate “in the coming days” the remains of six soldiers who fell in Diên Bien Phu, in what is now Vietnam, the French Ministry of the Armed Forces said on Friday.
“These are already known remains, kept in three different places”, which had been “reported to the French embassy in Vietnam in 2012, 2021 and 2022”, he specified in a press release. The Vietnamese authorities gave authorization on March 25, and the exhumation of the remains took place the next day. “Tributes to the dead were paid by the Vietnamese and French authorities at each of the sites.”
Analyzes to confirm or know identities
“The National Office for Combatants and Victims of War (ONaCVG) will be responsible for conducting anthropo-archaeological analyses” to try to identify the remains, the ministry said. The families of the deceased identified will be able to obtain the restitution of their remains, or opt for burial in a national necropolis.
📌 May 7, 1954 - End of the battle of #DiênBiênPhu
March 13-17, 1954 - French Indochina
A wounded paratrooper, supported by two of his comrades, is evacuated to the surgical branch of the entrenched camp of Diên Biên Phu.
Ref. : NVN 54-40 R79
© Jean Péraud/ECPAD/Défense#ecpad pic.twitter.com/mxpwNq8O3P
— ECPAD (@ecpa_d) May 7, 2023
“One of the remains is accompanied by a surname plaque. The analyzes should make it possible to confirm his identity,” the press release specifies. The unidentified remains will be buried in the necropolis of the Indochina War Memorial, in Fréjus, where the ashes of the controversial General Bigeard were transferred in 2012, after the refusal of the Vietnamese authorities to see him scattered on their soil. Since then, they have been moved to Les Invalides.
“Yesterday as today, on our soil or elsewhere, it is the honor of France to always ensure a perpetual burial for those who died for it,” declared Patricia Miralles, Secretary of State. to Veterans.
No new remains reported after work at airport
The decision of the Hanoi authorities to develop the Diên Bien Phu area and extend its airport to the site of the old battles, which left 4,000 dead on the French side, had led to predictions of the discovery of new bodies.
“Preventive archaeology” training had been provided to site managers. But “since then, the French authorities have not been informed of the discovery” of new bodies of French combatants.