This article is taken from Le Figaro Histoire
“French Indochina, from the conquest to Diên Bien Phu”. Discover in this issue
the history of France's Asian century.
1858-1954: French Indochina Figaro History
Hélie de Saint Marc spoke of
“our orphan war”,
because the French soldiers who had left their youth and their freedom there had felt deeply abandoned. Poorly managed by the hesitant succession of governments of the Fourth Republic, abandoned by American allies in a hurry to take the place of the old colonial powers, betrayed by communist militants who sabotaged, at the rear, the equipment intended for them, delivered in their prison camps to the dehumanizing action of political commissioners, starved, tortured, they had, on their return to mainland France, been welcomed in Marseille with stones by CGT dockers.
A fight for freedom
The Indochina war is one of those which leaves the soul divided. Why did France decide to go, if…
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