When did the french leave vietnam? - vietnam - 2023 (2023)

FAQs

When did the French finally leave Vietnam? ›

In July 1954, after one hundred years of colonial rule, a defeated France was forced to leave Vietnam. Nationalist forces under the direction of General Vo Nguyen Giap trounced the allied French troops at the remote mountain outpost of Dien Bien Phu in the northwest corner of Vietnam.

The French colonial period in Vietnam officially began in 1887, when Vietnam was referred to as French Indochina. It lasted until 1954, with a break between 1941 and 1945, when the Japanese took over during World War 2.

The French lost their Indochinese colonies due to political, military, diplomatic, economic and socio-cultural factors. The fall of Dien Bien Phu in 1954 signalled a loss of French power. General Vo Nguyen Giap and his Viet Minh had triumphed on the eve of the Geneva Conference.

As the Viet Minh anti-aircraft fire took its toll and artillery bombarded the airstrip, effectively preventing takeoffs and landings, fewer and fewer of those supplies reached the French. The garrison was overrun in May after a two-month siege, and most of the French forces surrendered.

In 1954, Ho's forces won a decisive victory at Dien Bien Phu and succeeded in evicting the French once and for all.

What we now call Vietnam was once owned and run by France. From the late 1800's to 1954, Vietnam was part of a French colony called French Indochina. When the French first became interested in Indochina French missionaries sought to convert the Vietnamese to Catholicism, the religion of France.

The French dead in Vietnam numbered 55,000, nearly as many as the 58,000 Americans killed there, though France has one-fifth the population of the United States. France's eight-year war officially began 50 years ago today.

October 1945 - 35,000 French soldiers under the command of World War II General Jacques Philippe Leclerc arrive in South Vietnam to restore French rule. Viet Minh immediately begin a guerrilla campaign to harass them. The French then succeed in expelling the Viet Minh from Saigon.

On May 7, 1954, the French-held garrison at Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam fell after a four month siege led by Vietnamese nationalist Ho Chi Minh.

How did Vietnam gain independence from the French? ›

Under the Geneva Agreements, France agreed to withdraw its troops from Indochina, and agreed to the independence of South Vietnam and North Vietnam on December 29, 1954.

Communist forces ended the war by seizing control of South Vietnam in 1975, and the country was unified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam the following year.

In northwest Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh's Viet Minh forces decisively defeat the French at Dien Bien Phu, a French stronghold besieged by the Vietnamese communists for 57 days.

August 5, 1964

After North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked the U.S.S. Maddox and U.S.S. Turner Joy in the Gulf of Tonkin, President Johnson ordered the retaliatory bombing of military targets in North Vietnam. Congress soon passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave Johnson broad war-making powers.

Nestled in the midst of a primeval forest, Bà Nà Hills French Village offers a world-class destination high in the mountains of Da Nang, Vietnam. Representing the apex of French culture and architecture, the quaint village of Bà Nà Hills was dreamed up by the master storytellers at Falcon's Creative Group.

Attitudes towards foreigners in Vietnam

The Vietnamese people who expats have to deal with on a day-to-day basis are usually warm, welcoming and helpful. However, Vietnam is a popular tourist destination, so there are often times when Western expats find that some locals view them as outsiders.

Foreign languages have always been important in Vietnam, but today they may be more important than ever. Because of this, English classes are compulsory in Vietnamese schools and a little over 50% of Vietnamese speak English!

The French language is spoken throughout Southeast Asia, particularly in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. The French arrived in Asia during the Age of Exploration, while French explorers were making claims in the territory of French Indochina. Since then, French language and culture have had a massive impact on the region.

In its early history, northern Vietnam was colonised by China's Han dynasty. They ruled it as a southern province of China and imposed Chinese language, law, culture and values on the Viet people.

In Asia and the Middle East, the French language remains a trace of France's colonial past in countries such as Laos (190,000 speakers), Vietnam (660,000 speakers) and Cambodia (440,000 speakers), which formerly made up French Indochina.

What did the French want from Vietnam? ›

French colonists were interested in acquiring land, exploiting labour, exporting resources and making profit. 3. Vietnamese land was seized by the French and collectivised into large rice and rubber plantations.

Vietnam was brought under the control of China following the Ming dynasty's defeat of the short-lived Hồ dynasty. The fourth period of Chinese rule ended when the Lam Sơn uprising led by Lê Lợi emerged successful.

From roughly 111 BCE to 938 CE, Vietnam was under the control of the Chinese empire. During this time, Vietnam was heavily influenced by China, but still wanted its independence. The final Chinese dynasty to firmly rule over Vietnam was the Tang dynasty, who came into power in 618 CE.

The Battle of Dien Bien Phu, fought from March 13 to May 7, 1954, was a decisive Vietnamese military victory that brought an end to French colonial rule in Vietnam.

The central fact of French involvement in Vietnam was the persistent seven-year effort to re-establish French colonial rule. French forces were pitted against a Communist-led revolution for national independence; at no point did France offer Vietnam the alternative of non-Communist independence.

Following the Geneva Accords, which granted Vietnam its independence from France, a number of Vietnamese loyal to the colonial government and Vietnamese married to French colonists emigrated to France.

French troops landed in Vietnam in 1858 and by the mid-1880s they had established a firm grip over the northern region.

For more than 40 years Vietnam has been reunified under the official name The Socialist Republic of Vietnam. But in fact, Vietnam has rarely, in its 2,000-year history, been unified. In fact, it has nearly always been split into the north and the south.

The Vietnam War may have defined 1960s and 1970s America, but it lasted 10 years by the most widely accepted metric (and, officially, it was never a war at all). And while World War I and II may have killed far more American troops, the fighting didn't linger for a decade and a half.

What happened to French soldiers after Dien Bien Phu? ›

“Yet despite all this, and the lack of equipment, the surgeons performed miracles every day,” she added. The Dien Bien Phu garrison surrendered on May 7, 1954. Nearly 11,000 French troops were taken prisoner, many of whom would die in captivity. Thousands perished on long, forced marches to prison camps.

2) What convinced the French to pull out of Vietnam? The French troops were unable to defeat the Vietminh guerrillas, and casualties made the war increasingly unpopular with the French people. When the French lost Dien Bien Phu to the Vietminh, they decided to make peace and withdraw from Indochina.

October 1945 - 35,000 French soldiers under the command of World War II General Jacques Philippe Leclerc arrive in South Vietnam to restore French rule. Viet Minh immediately begin a guerrilla campaign to harass them. The French then succeed in expelling the Viet Minh from Saigon.