French Indochina, officially known as the Indochinese Union and after 1941 as the Indochinese Federation, was a federation of French colonies and later associated states in Southeast Asia. It comprised Cambodia, Laos, Guangzhouwan (1898–1945), Cochinchina, and Vietnamese regions of Tonkin and Annam. It was established in 1887 and was dissolved in 1954. In 1949, Vietnam was unified and regained Cochinchina. Its capitals were Hanoi (1902–45) and Saigon.
Pierre François Marie Louis Boulle was a French author. He is best known for two works, The Bridge over the River Kwai (1952) and Planet of the Apes (1963), that were both made into award-winning films.
Curd Gustav Andreas Gottlieb Franz Jürgens was a German-Austrian stage and film actor. He was usually billed in English-speaking films as Curt Jurgens. He was well known for playing Ernst Udet in Des Teufels General. His English-language roles include James Bond villain Karl Stromberg in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), Éric Carradine in And God Created Woman (1956), and Professor Immanuel Rath in The Blue Angel (1959).
Marcel Paul Pagnol was a French novelist, playwright, and filmmaker. Regarded as an auteur, in 1946, he became the first filmmaker elected to the Académie française. Pagnol is generally regarded as one of France's greatest 20th-century writers and is notable for the fact that he excelled in almost every medium—memoir, novel, drama and film.
Philippe François Marie Leclerc de Hauteclocque was a Free-French general during World War II. He became Marshal of France posthumously in 1952, and is known in France simply as le maréchal Leclerc or just Leclerc.
Roland C. Wagner was a French writer of humorous science fiction. Since his professional debut in 1981, he had written around one hundred novellas and around fifty novels. He was the only writer to have received the Prix Rosny-Aîné seven times, as well as many other awards.
Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand was a Spanish and Portuguese prince, Governor of the Spanish Netherlands, Cardinal of the Holy Catholic Church, Archduke of Austria, Archbishop of Toledo (1619–41), and a general during the Thirty Years' War, the Eighty Years' War, and the Franco-Spanish War. He is commonly considered the last great commander and strategist of the Spanish Empire, whose premature death in a critical moment helped bring about the end of Spanish hegemony in Europe. He is, as well, one of few generals undefeated on the battlefield.
Raoul Albin Louis Salan was a French Army general and the founder of the Organisation armée secrète, a clandestine terrorist organisation that sought to maintain French Algeria by preventing Algerian independence. He served as the fourth French commanding general during the First Indochina War. He was one of four retired generals who organized the 1961 Algiers putsch operation. He was the most decorated soldier in the French Army at the end of his military career.
Pascal Bruckner is a French writer, one of the "New Philosophers" who came to prominence in the 1970s and 1980s. Much of his work has been devoted to critiques of French society and culture.
The Franciscan Recollects were a French reform branch of the Friars Minor, a Franciscan order. Denoted by their gray habits and pointed hoods, the Recollects devoted their lives to an extra emphasis on prayer, penance and spiritual reflection (recollection), focusing on living in small, remote communities the better to facilitate these goals. Today they are best known for their activities as missionaries in various parts of the world, most notably in early French Canada.
Marcel Bucard was a French Fascist politician.
The La Galissonnière-class cruisers were commissioned by the French Navy in the 1930s. They were the last French cruisers completed after 1935, until the completion of De Grasse in 1956. They are considered fast, reliable and successful light cruisers. Two cruisers of this class, Georges Leygues and Montcalm, took part in the defence of Dakar in late September 1940 during World War II. With the cruiser Gloire, they joined the Allied forces after the successful Allied landings in North Africa in November 1942. The three other cruisers of the La Galissonière class, held under Vichy control at Toulon, were scuttled on 27 November 1942.
Marcel Bigeard, personal radio call-sign "Bruno", was a French military officer and politician who fought in World War II, the First Indochina War and the Algerian War. He was one of the commanders in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu and is thought by many to have been a dominating influence on French "unconventional" warfare thinking from that time onwards. He was one of the most decorated officers in France, and is particularly noteworthy because of his rise from being a regular soldier in 1936 to ultimately concluding his career in 1976 as a Lieutenant General and serving in the government of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.
Georges Leygues was a French light cruiser of the La Galissonnière class. During World War II, she served with both Vichy France and Allies. She was named for the prominent 19th and 20th-century French politician Georges Leygues.
Pierre Schoendoerffer was a French film director, a screenwriter, a writer, a war reporter, a war cameraman, a renowned First Indochina War veteran, a cinema academician. He was president of the Académie des Beaux-Arts for 2001 and for 2007.
Le temple de la Gloire is an opéra-ballet by Jean-Philippe Rameau with a libretto by Voltaire. The work was first performed in a five-act version on 27 November 1745 at the Grande Écurie, Versailles to celebrate the French victory at the Battle of Fontenoy. It transferred, unsuccessfully, to the Paris Opéra on 7 December 1745. A revised version, in a prologue and three acts, appeared at the Opéra on 19 April 1746.
The Bombardment of Tourane was a naval incident that took place during the short reign of the Vietnamese emperor Thiệu Trị (1841–47), which saw a considerable worsening of relations between France and Vietnam. The French warships Gloire and Victorieuse, which had been sent to Tourane to negotiate for the release of two French Catholic missionaries, were surprise attacked by several Vietnamese vessels. The two French ships fought back, sinking four Vietnamese corvettes, badly damaging a fifth, and inflicting just under 230 casualties. In response to this and other provocations, the French eventually decided to intervene actively in Vietnam, and a decade later launched the Cochinchina Campaign (1858–62), which inaugurated the period of French colonial rule in Vietnam.
Henri Decoin was a French film director and screenwriter, who directed more than 50 films between 1933 and 1964. He was also a swimmer who won the national title in 1911 and held the national record in the 500 m freestyle. He competed in the 400 m freestyle at the 1908 Summer Olympics and in the water polo tournament at the 1912 Summer Olympics.
Maurice Larrouy was a French marine officer and writer, also known by his pseudonym "René Milan".
Thiên Hương, usually credited as Tiny Yong, is a singer who was popular in France during the 1960s. She was born in French Indochina, and is of Vietnamese ancestry.
