- Jean Decoux
Jean Decoux (1884,
Bordeaux -October 21 ,1963 ,Paris ) was theGovernor-General of French Indochina from 1940 to 1945, representing theVichy government.Decoux’s task in Indochina was to reverse the policy of appeasement towards the
Japan ese led by his predecessor generalGeorges Catroux , but political realities soon forced him to continue down the same road.Decoux reportedly received demands from the Japanese in early August for permission to move troops through
Tonkin (laterVietnam ) in order to build air bases and block Allied supply routes toChina . Decoux cabled hisVichy superiors for help, but when no help was forthcoming signed treaty September 20, 1940 openingHaiphong harbor to the Japanese giving them the right to station troops in the region. [http://www.answers.com/topic/1940]Decoux worked to improve relations between French colonists and the Vietnamese, establishing a grand federal council containing twice as many Vietnamese as Frenchmen and installing Vietnamese in civil-service positions with equal pay to that of French civil servants. [http://www.answers.com/topic/1940]
Decoux enforced the discriminatory laws against
Gaullists andFreemasons , as well as theanti-Semitic Statute on Jews , despite decrying the laws harmful to the Vichy agenda. [Jennings, Eric "Vichy in the Tropics: Petain's National Revolution in Madagascar, Guadeloupe, and Indochina, 1940-44" Stanford University Press, 2004 ISBN 0804750475]In 1945, the Japanese took direct control of the government and ousted Decoux, establishing the
Empire of Vietnam .Arrested and tried after the war, Decoux was not convicted. He was restored to his rank and prerogatives in 1949. He later wrote the book "A la barre de l'Indochine".
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