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Colonial ambition. France was also short of funds post WWII and financed part of the war by being complicit in the heroin trade. France also allowed local (as in France) gangsters to traffic in heroin in exchange for breaking up striking dock workers (who were interrupting the flow of war materials to Indo China) and in general giving a hard time to union workers and socialists.
I had never heard of this. Do you have any references?
The SDECE was about covert operations, which is separate from the regular military campaigns done in Indochina at the time. Its involvement in the narco trade is probably equivalent to the Reagan era arms for contra deal with Iran - to escape national scrutiny and oversight.
As I've said, the other French regular military involvement, such as the Expeditionary Corps, wasn't financed by opium revenues. They did get foreign aid support from the US.
But you do make a point - the French colonial regime in Southeast Asia WAS actually profiting from opium production for quite a long time, they had an opium monopoly that contributed to their tax revenues. I stand corrected.
I take it you read The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, by Alfred W. McCoy. Great book.
Britain gave up its colonies with little violence.
So did the Dutch, though they only had one big colony (Indonesia). After some limited fighting, the Dutch saw the writing on the wall very clearly and knew that they would eventually lose. Then they packed their bags and went home.
The French wanted the glory and prestige of a colonial empire. In French Indo China we bank rolled their efforts until they finally gave up. We then took up the cause in the name of anti communism and spent another twenty years wasting American lives and the taxpayer's money.
France got reduced in actuality to a Jr. partner among the Allies as a consequence of needing America and Great Britain to rescue them from Nazi occupation. In the minds of the French, especially DeGaulle, France at all times retained its equal stature as an ally. This was a tough act to pull off since France had quit the war in 1940 and only rejoined the effort (with soldiers equipped entirely by America and Great Britain) for the final ten months.
Never short on gall, DeGaulle demanded that France receive an equal occupation zone in Germany and in general behaved like they had been in the war the whole time and merited the same credit for defeating the Nazis as their allies.
Part of this "We're still as great as ever" complex from which they were suffering, was the restoration of their pre war colonial empire...as in "Nothing has changed, we're still a mighty power." Their martial efforts in Vietnam and Algeria were attempts to validate this image in the eyes of the world. They were trying to erase their recent humiliation at Germany's hands by acting like the pre war balance of power had not been altered in any manner.
One wishes we had shown the free Polish the same honor.
And it was the spiritual "homeland" of the Foreign Legion which meant completely abandoning Algeria had an emotional and psychological impact on a significant portion of the French military.
Why did France blah blah, why did France more blah blah. 3 threads on France, I'm AMAZED.
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