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Élysée Accords

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Not to be confused with Élysée Treaty.

The Elysée Accords were an international agreement to give independence and unification for Vietnam as an associated state within the French Union on 8 March 1949.[1][2] This was a turning point in Vietnamese history because France no longer considered Vietnam a colony while Vietnam reunified its two protectorates and regained Cochinchina. The Accords signed at the Élysée Palace by ex-emperor Bảo Đại on 8 March 1949 to establish the State of Vietnam and received final ratification by the French National Assembly on 29 January 1950, and were signed by French President Vincent Auriol on February 2. The agreement was intended to have U.S. support for France's actions in French Indochina; as well as to convince Bảo Đại that France would give Vietnam a greater independence. The French colonial regime itself became softer after World War II.[3] The accords gave Vietnam all the necessary independence rights, but the State of Vietnam was still not a sovereign state completely but only an associated one.[4][5][1] Despite the gradual transfer of management functions to the State of Vietnam; because of wartime, France still controlled all foreign policy, every defense issue and would have a French Union army stationed in the country with complete freedom of movement.[6] In 1950 Bảo Đại attended a series of conferences in Pau, France where he pressed the French for further independence. The French granted some minor concessions to the Vietnamese, which caused a mixed reaction on both sides.[7] The French government agreed to give the State of Vietnam complete independence with the Matignon Accords on 4 June 1954, but they had never been ratified by the heads of both countries.[8][9] After the French Union lost the war, Vietnam gained independence from France with the Geneva Accords but was divided on 21 July 1954. The Republic of Vietnam (the successor of the State of Vietnam) in South Vietnam withdrew from the French Union on 9 December 1955.[10]

Within the framework of the French Union, France also granted independence to the other nations in Indochina, the Kingdoms of Laos and Cambodia. The agreement led to the U.S. moving from a position of neutrality to supporting the French colonial empire in their Indochina and Bảo Đại's state.[4]

Content

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The agreement was compared to the British Commonwealth of Nations, though fell short in many aspects. Vietnam was empowered to control its own finances and the path was paved for the creation of the Vietnamese National Army. Vietnam was granted the right to appoint diplomats to China, Thailand, and the Vatican City, whilst the remainder of Vietnamese foreign policy remained under French control.[5][1]

Effects

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Whilst intending to prevent further nationalist sentiment in the war against communists, the Elysée Accords had the opposite effect - showing Vietnamese nationalists that the French were unwilling to compromise their interests in Indochina. Ngô Đình Diệm, a conservative and anti-communist nationalist, rejected an offer of Prime Minister in the new Vietnam, saying "the national aspirations of the Vietnamese people will be satisfied only when our nation obtains the same status India and Pakistan enjoy".[5]

On 22 July 1949, the United States State Department declared that the Elysée Accords were developments that realized the aspirations of the Vietnamese people, though the United States did not immediately recognize the new state, much to the disappointment of France. After the loss of China to the Chinese Communist Party on 1 October 1949 and the recognition of the communist government of Hồ Chí Minh by the Soviet Union in January 1950, Americans eventually abandoned their policy of neutrality regarding the political dispute in Indochina when recognizing the State of Vietnam of Bảo Đại in February and later giving military aid to the French Union army during the war as part of their anti-communist foreign policy.[4]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c Duiker, William (1994-07-01). U.S. Containment Policy and the Conflict in Indochina. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-6581-7.
  2. ^ Philippe Franchini, Les Guerres d'Indochine, vol. I, Pygmalion - Gérard Watelet, Paris, 1988, pp. 399-406
  3. ^ Simpson, Alfred William Brian (2004). Human Rights and the End of Empire: Britain and the Genesis of the European Convention. Oxford University Press. p. 285. ISBN 0199267898.
  4. ^ a b c Bragg, Christine (2005). Vietnam, Korea and US Foreign Policy. Heinemann. ISBN 978-0-435-32708-8.
  5. ^ a b c SarDesai, D. R. (1968). Indian Foreign Policy in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, 1947-1964. University of California Press.
  6. ^ Hammer, Ellen J. (March 1950). "The Bao Dai Experiment". Pacific Affairs. 23 (1): 57–58. doi:10.2307/2753754. JSTOR 2753754.
  7. ^ United States. Department of Defense (1971). The Pentagon papers : the Defense Department history of United States decisionmaking on Vietnam / 1. Vol. 1. Mike Gravel. Boston: Beacon Pr. ISBN 0-8070-0527-4. OCLC 643945604.
  8. ^ "A picture taken on ngày 4 tháng 6 năm 1954 shows Vietnamese Prime Minister Buu Loc and French council president Joseph Laniel (R) preparing to sign two Franco-Vietnamese treaties by which France recognised Vietnam as an independent state at the Hotel Matignon in Paris, on ngày 4 tháng 6 năm 1954. These signatures took place one month after the defeat of Dien Bien Phu and a few days before the fall of Laniel's government". Archived from the original on 2014-07-26. Retrieved 2014-07-19.
  9. ^ The Indochinese Experience of the French and the Americans: Nationalism and Communism in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Arthur J. Dommen. Indiana University Press, 20-02-2002. P 240. Trích: The question remains of why the treaties of independence and association were simply initialed by Laniel and Buu Loc and not signed by Coty and Bao Dai… Many writers place the blame for the non-signature of the treaties on the Vietnamese. But there exists no logical explanation why it should have been the Vietnamese, rather than French, who refused their signature to the treaties which had been negotiated. Bao Dai had arrived in French in April believing the treaty-signing was only a matter of two or three weeks away. However, a quite satisfactory explanation in what was happening in Geneva, where the negotiations were moving ahead with suprising rapidity.… After Geneva, Bao Dai’s treaties was never completed
  10. ^ "Pentagon Papers Part IV A 3" (PDF). National Archives and Records Administration. 1954–1960. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-04-05. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
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