The French schools in Vietnam from 1945 to 1975 : from the civilizing mission to cultural diplomacy
type: Dataset
description: This historical research traces the evolution of the French schools in Vietnam from 1945 to 1975, drawing from archives and interviews with former students and teachers. In colonial Indochina, under the guise of the "civilizing mission", the French established an educational system designed to produce only subordinates, as they feared that a better education would create individuals likely to threaten the colonial order. Yet, in spite of the resistance of colonial authorities, Vietnamese elites always managed to send their children to the local French schools that were, in principle, open only to Europeans.After World War II, Vietnam embarked on the path of independence, forcing the French to rethink their educational policy in a country that was no longer a colony. After believing for a while that France would remain "the educator of Indochina", the French accepted to play a supporting role in Vietnamese education through the creation of a cultural mission. There was no longer question of limiting access to French schools: rather, those schools opened their doors wide to Vietnamese students to offer them a high-quality education. The French defeat of Ði?n Bien Phu in 1954, which resulted in France’s political withdrawal from Vietnam, accelerated the transformation of the former colonial education system. Passing under the tutelage of Foreign Affairs, the French schools in Vietnam became an instrument of cultural diplomacy. The French hoped that their continuing cultural presence, and particularly their prestigious lycées, would grant them a decisive influence in Vietnamese affairs. In the North, in the pro-Soviet Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the Lycée Albert-Sarraut became the only western school to operate in a communist nation, allowing the French to maintain a special relationship with a country that the West considered as an enemy. This unique experience was terminated in 1965 due to lack of agreement between the French and the North Vietnamese on the nature…
landing page: https://theses.hal.science/tel-00932439
identifier: NNT: 2013PA05H009
keyword: colonisation
keyword: colonization
keyword: cultural-diplomacy
keyword: decolonisation
keyword: decolonization
keyword: diplomatie-culturelle
keyword: ecole
keyword: educational-policies
keyword: enseignement-secondaire
keyword: france
keyword: high-school
keyword: indochina
keyword: indochine
keyword: infoeu-reposemanticsdoctoralthesis
keyword: lycee
keyword: politiques-educatives
keyword: school
keyword: secondary-education
keyword: shseduhumanities-and-social-scienceseducation
keyword: theses
keyword: vietnam
issued: 2026-05-07T09:11:49.345213
modified: 2026-05-07T09:11:49.345218
language: fr
contact point: Organization
  fn: CCSD

test_moissonnage_selune
type: Agent

The French schools in Vietnam from 1945 to 1975 : from the civilizing mission to cultural diplomacy
type: Distribution
format: HTML
access URL: https://theses.hal.science/tel-00932439
issued: 2026-05-07T09:11:49.347986
modified: 2026-05-07T09:11:49.325815