Vietnam has for the first time invited France to commemorate the 1954 battle of Dien Bien Phu, which led to the defeat of French forces in Vietnam and marked the country’s last stand in colonial Indochina, according to RFI.
French officials have previously visited memorials commemorating the conflict, this will be the first time a minister has attended an official Vietnam commemoration ceremony. Defence Minister Sébastien Lecornu will represent France at celebrations marking the 70th anniversary of the battle next week.
“For the first time in history, the Vietnamese have invited France to this commemoration, a sign of their desire to build a relationship for the future. (…) There is a shared desire to look at the history of the Indochina War in a lucid and open manner,” the French defence ministry said on Friday.
The defence ministry added that Lecornu, who leaves for Vietnam on Saturday, will meet with Vietnam’s Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and Defence Minister Phan Van Giang on Monday, and on Tuesday will pay tribute to Vietnamese dead at a Vietnamese war cemetery and pay tribute to French soldiers at the French memorial in Dien Bien Phu.
The Dien Bien Phu Valley in North Vietnam was the site of a fierce battle between French colonial troops and Vietnamese communist forces from 13 March to 7 May 1954. For France, it was the most serious conflict since World War II, resulting in thousands of deaths on both sides. In March, the defence ministry said France was planning to repatriate from Vietnam the bodies of six soldiers killed in combat, five of whom are buried without names.
The battle ended with the humiliating fall of the French forces, which undermined Paris’s prestige and strengthened the independence movement in the other colonies. What was once called French Indochina has now become Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. Today, Paris remains one of Vietnam’s most important allies, and Paris is seeking to boost co-operation with Hanoi amid tensions with China in the Asia-Pacific region.
