France is invited for the first time to the commemorations of the Battle of Dien Bien Phu

The Minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu will go to the Vietnamese ceremony on Tuesday, for the 70th anniversary of this battle which sealed the end of the French presence in Indochina.

France was invited to Vietnam for the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. “For the first time in history, the Vietnamese invited France to this commemoration, a sign of the desire to build a relationship for the future”, announced the French Ministry of the Armed Forces on Friday May 3. France will be represented by the Minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu to commemorate this battle, which sealed the emergence of Vietnam as an independent nation and the end of the French presence in Indochina.

Sébastien Lecornu, who leaves for Vietnam on Saturday, will go to Vietnam on Tuesday “at the Vietnamese ceremony, then at the tribute to the Vietnamese dead in a Vietnamese military cemetery”, specified the ministry. He will pay a distinct tribute to French soldiers at the French memorial in Dien Bien Phu. “There is a shared desire to look at this history of the Indochina War in a lucid and open manner”, added the ministry. The battle left in France the memory of a military humiliation, while it remains a symbol of immense pride for the People’s Army of Vietnam.

Bilateral relations still tense

The fighting began on March 13, 1954, pitting some 15,000 French soldiers (many from the colonial empire) against the 50,000 Viet Minh resistance fighters of General Vo Nguyen Giap. After 56 days of deluges of shells and hand-to-hand confrontations, the battle ended on May 7, 1954 with the fall of the French entrenched camp, crushed by General Giap who earned his reputation as a strategist by shelling the troops. colonial by cannons, hoisted by his men in pieces on the hills overlooking the basin.

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The battle left 3,000 dead or missing on the French side, up to 10,000 on the Vietnamese side. On July 21, 1954, the Geneva Accords ratified the French defeat and the partition of the country, a prelude to American involvement in the Vietnam War.

Bilateral relations are today relaxed, in particular despite human rights violations and arrests of opponents of which the communist regime is regularly accused. Paris recently repatriated the remains of six soldiers who fell in Dien Bien Phu, “reported to the French Embassy in Vietnam in 2012, 2021 and 2022”, according to the Ministry of the Armed Forces. Delays testifying to the persistent sensitivity of the subject within the regime.