Ho–Sainteny agreement

{{Short description|1946 treaty between Vietnam and France}}

The Ho–Sainteny agreement, officially the Accord Between France and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, known in Vietnamese as Hiệp định sơ bộ Pháp-Việt, was a preliminary treaty made on 6 March 1946, between Ho Chi Minh, a de facto communist and the President of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV), and Jean Sainteny, Special Envoy of France. It recognized Vietnam as only a non-unified and free country within the French Union, and permitted France to continue stationing troops in North Vietnam.Why Vietnam, Archimedes L.A Patti, Nhà xuất bản Đà Nẵng, 2008, trang 622Howard Zinn, ed., "Accord Between France and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam on 6 March 1946," in The Pentagon Papers, by Mike Gravel, Gravel, vol. 1 (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1971), 18–19, [http://mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon/int2.htm www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon/int2.htm] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210125093817/https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon/int2.htm |date=2021-01-25 }}. However, the French Union was only established on 27 October 1946 with the new French constitution. Tonkin and Annam were still two protectorates within Vietnam, and Cochinchina was still not part of Vietnam. Regarding the merger of all three into a unified Vietnam, the French Government committed to recognizing that the people's decisions would directly judge this.Hồ Chí Minh. Toàn tập. Tập 4. Nhà xuất bản Chính trị Quốc gia. 2000. trang 324–326 Although the First Indochina War between the two countries broke out on 19 December 1946, legally the agreement was still valid until the Vịnh Hạ Long Preliminary Treaty on 5 June 1948 between France and Vietnamese anti-communists, leading to the establishment of the State of Vietnam in 1949 as an independent and unified country within the French Union.

{{Hồ Chí Minh series}}

== See also ==

• Élysée Accords