President Ho did not attend the Fontainebleau negotiations. In his capacity as a distinguished guest of the French Government, he stayed in Paris.
He worked without respite, sometimes as much as 14 hours a day, as the comrades in our delegation later told us.
President Ho met and talked with almost all major political organizations in France. All the three leading Parties in power sent their representatives to see him. The delegation of the French Communist Party, which then had a membership of half a million, consisted of such important leaders as Thorez (then Vice President of the French Government), Duclos, Cachin, Billoux, etc. Some of these had known him back in the twenties and thirties at the Tours Congress, in Moscow and at the Conferences of the Communist International. He met with representatives of several international mass organizations such as the World Federation of Trade Unions, the World Federation of Democratic Youth, the Women’s International Democratic Federation. These organizations were given information on the activities of the Vietnamese workers, youth and women, and admitted the Vietnamese labour, youth and women’s organizations as affiliated members. Some young people from other countries who had a chance to meet President Ho at that time were already calling him by this name full of love and respect: “Uncle Ho”.
He met many influential personalities in Paris, politicians, economists, financiers, military men and intellectuals including journalists and writers such as Louis Aragon, Ilya Ehrenburg, Anna Seghers, Elsa Triolet, Richard Bloch, Pierre Emmanuel...
He was fully aware of the importance of enlightening all the people on what was happening in Viet Nam, its revolutionary movement and the Vietnamese people’s legitimate aspirations for independence and reunification. This work couldn’t be done in one day or even one month. Representatives of the new Viet Nam were now present in Paris. But it was not easy to give people a correct understanding of our people’s urgent problems and legitimate aspirations when the reactionaries were doing everything in their power to distort the facts.
President Ho exerted a great influence on the Paris press circle. The correspondent of the daily Combat reported on his meeting with Prestdent Ho:
“Mr Ho Chi Minh, President of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam, received me without ceremony, his manners being always simple. He is an elderly man with shrewd and kind eyes and a face radiating benevolence and determination. A black beard accentuates its Asian character. He wore a military jacket without decorations, in a manner reminiscent of the men of the October Revolution. He spoke slowly with a thorough knowledge of the French language and all its subtleties; his voice was clear and distinct, his style plain and unaffected. With him were some intelligent and patriotic young people. On his shoulder, he carried firmly the destiny of a nation of whose characteristics he was the representative...”
Some of the journalists who had formerly distorted our people’s struggle began to write more truthful articles following their first contacts with President Ho.
Later, a French journalist wrote “with his brilliance, his eloquence and his prestige, his words had a deep effect. Some journalists approved of him, others criticized him but the whole world spoke of him.”
President Ho’s image, described in identical terms by the press — bright eyes, broad forehead, scanty beard, a plain suit and simple gestures — won the French people’s love and left a deep impression in their hearts. A Vietnamese resident in France, noticing that the President had been wearing the same suit of plain cloth since his arrival in France, hastened to get his measurements with the intention of making him a new suit, presumably more in keeping with fashion and his status. But President Ho found out about it in time and stopped him.
The French authorities were unable to find any excuse which they could use to obstract the contact between their distinguished guest and various political organizations, influential personalities and the press.
One week after the opening of the Fontainebleau Conference, President Ho gave a press conference in Paris. In an attempt to keep the Viet Nam question out of the limelight, Bidault then President of the French government had had the Conference held 60 km. away from the French capital, pleading the need for a quiet place for the sake of the talks. The journalists, camaramen and photographers could not spot anything behind the high walls of Fontainebleau palace. They thus rushed to the press conference in large numbers.
President Ho pointed out the 6 points of the Vietnamese side’s negotiating positions:
1. Viet Nam demands independence. Its independence does not mean a complete severing of relations with France, but would be an independence within the French Union, thus both countries may profit from it. In the economic and cultural fields, Viet Nam is willing to cooperate with France.
2. Viet Nam firmly rejects a federal government.
3. Southern Viet Nam is part and parcel of Viet Nam, no one has the right to separate it, no force can separate it.
4. Viet Nam will protect French properties. But the French must abide by the labour regulations of Viet Nam and Viet Nam reserves the right to purchase those properties which are important for its national defence.
5. If Viet Nam needs advisers, French people will be given preference.
6. Viet Nam has the right to send its ambassadors and consuls to other countries.
President Ho said:
“For our part, we are very sincere. We hope that other people will also treat us with sincerity. We are resolved not to lower ourselves. But neither do we wish to degrade France. We have no desire to push the French out of Viet Nam; but we want to say: let them send to Viet Nam those who respect us. Only mutual trust and cooperation in all sincerity and equality can bring about a friendly relationship between the two countries.”
While the Fontainebleau negotiations were being kept in the dark, President Ho’s statements brought the problem to light and were followed by a heated debate in the press. The majority of the press regarded his statements as reasonable and sincere. One paper wrote: “Those statements show that President Ho and the Vietnamese Government are resolved to settle Franco-Vietnamese relations through a mutual and amicable understanding between the two nations.” French progressive opinion was on our side, and criticized the provocative comments of a few reactionary papers.
Over half a month had passed and no progress had been made at the Fontainebleau conference. Unexpectedly, on July 23, the Paris press reported that D’Argenlieu, the French High Commissioner in Indochina, was convening a federal conference in Dalat on August 1. The composition of this conference would include representatives of Laos, Cambodia, Cochinchina, Southern Annam and the Central Highlands... This suggested that d’Argenlieu wanted not only to cut off the South from Viet Nam but also to split Viet Nam into several “countries” and regions. On the same morning, our delegation lodged an energetic protest at the Fontainebleau Conference. The French again tried to evade the problem by promising to submit the protest to their government.
Because of the High Commissioner’s action and the French Government’s calculated indifference, the conference, already in a state of tension, became further stalemated.
On July 26, at noon, President Ho paid a visit to Fontainebleau. The Vietnamese delegation, the French delegation and representatives of the local administration and people welcomed him with bouquets of flowers. After the welcoming banquet given by the head of the local administration, the director of Fontainebleau palace showed him round the palace with all its ancient luxury and the splendour of its architecture. After that, President Ho suggested a walk in the woods. The director again accompanied him.
On his return, the President inquired into the situation of the conference and talked to the members of our delegation.
The conference was now in a hopeless impasse. The representatives of the French Government in the negotiations, acting on their leaders’ instructions, openly evaded the implementation of the Agreement, contending that they should not create a precedent for other French colonies to oppose the mother country. They still clung to obsolete reactionary ideas on the colonial question. The system they wanted to set up in Indochina was hardly different from what the French had established here before World War II.
President Ho went back to Paris in the evening.
The French Government maintained silence in the face of our delegation’s protest against d’Argenlieu’s convening of a so-called “federal conference” in Dalat on August 1. On that day, our delegation declared that it would postpone the session until it received a proper answer to its protest. Our delegation left Fontainebleau never to return.
The period of florid greetings and promises was over.
The French inter-ministerial council on the Indochina question met under the chairmanship of Bidault from August 10 to 12 to discuss the breakdown of the negotiations. Earlier, Varenne, a former governor-general in Indochina and now Minister of State in Bidault’s Government, who had just been appointed chairman of the inter-ministerial council on Indochina, declared to the press: “The third republic has created across the ocean a splendid work which brings glory to the genius of France! Are we going to abandon and destroy this work? For the French, such an action would be an irremediable disaster. We are a people who fully understand what we are saying and we will do everything in our power to ward off this disaster.”
A few days later, even De Gaulle made his voice heard. While censuring the draft constitution which was about to be put to a referendum, he severely criticized the statute of the French Union as laid down in the draft. He considered that the principle of “free self-determination” could only lead to anarchy, division and finally foreign domination.
All the meetings, discussions and exchanges of views held throughout the month of August could not help to get the Fontainebleau Conference under way again.