France French Long Service and Honour Medals to Vietnamese post 1954?

[ralstona]

Does anyone know why/how the French government continued to award various long service and honour medals to Vietnamese people after 1945? I sometimes see them with dates from the 50s-70s? Are these for Vietnamese people living in France? Did the government continue to give medals after they were gone? Any info would be great?

Below is an example to illustrate.

Art

[ralstona]

1954 not 1945 of course.

[Veteran]

This is an interesting medal. The name is clearly Vietnamese but the issued medal is typically metropolitan France, definitely not a colonial design.. I would think it is a metropolitan medal to a vietnamese employee of a French firm in France.

A picture of the obverse might possibly help.

All the best

Veteran

[ralstona]

Here is a link to the excellent website about the Medals of Indochina:

http://www.indochinamedals.com/indochine/fi03a_other_honor_medals.html

In the "Other Honor Medals" section (what i've linked to) you can see several examples of "Affaires Sociale" and "Securite Sociale" honor medals to Vietnamese people, most from after 1954. No explanation is given on the site but it seems to imply that they were not given to metropolitan France residents.

Art

[Veteran]

Art

I fully agree that the names of the recipients of the medals shown on this excellent site (Dave's?) are vietnamese. Nothing shows that they are not straighforward metropolitan medals awarded to vietnamese employees of metropolitan french firms or employers.

And nothing shows they have anything to do with French Indochina.

One possibility : vietnamese employees of french families or french firms who followed their employers to France when the French left Indochina after the war. They could have claimed the medals for them after 25 years services and still being employed. This would have to be demonstrated, but the names of all beneficiaries of such medals have always been formally published in the Journal Officiel or the more recent "Bulletin officiel des Decorations, Medailles et Recompenses".

Hope this helps

Paul

[ralstona]

Yes I agree that is a distinct possibility. Could they have remained in Indochina after 1954 (S. Vietnam) and continued to work for French firms? Certainly some French companies and agencies continued to operate (at least until 1975). I'm just thinking out loud here.

P.S. The Indochina Medals site is great. Is it a member's?

[ThaiDave]

Ralstona,

Its a little late to find this thread, but I'll add my 2 cents.

All of these medals I found in Vietnam.  So I'm more inclined to think that they are awarded in Vietnam, rather than in France and taken back.  Therefore, perhaps they are from French companies which continued in Vietnam after 1954.

Its interested to check the actual citation in the official journal.  I will look further towards this. Then it will be clear. I see that this was started in 1951, but as yet I don't find online access. Its not in Gallica as I can see, and as per French Widipedia it is not online (but info from 2010)

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_officiel_des_décorations,_médailles_et_récompenses

https://www.senat.fr/questions/base/2010/qSEQ100312713.html

If existed, I think it should be here: https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/contenu/menu/publications-officielles/bulletins-officiels

Therefore, one perhaps at this time needs to find a place which has a subscription to this official bulliten.

Rgds

Dave

P/S  It's my site - www.indochinamedals.com ?

[ThaiDave]

Hi Ralstona

I find a little more about the online BODMR.  Others asked about this, and the official reply was that it cannot be made public.  However, you can buy the book.  Go figure...

https://forum.ouvre-boite.org/t/bulletin-officiel-des-decorations-medailles-et-recompenses/271/16

So for now have to find a location that has the book.  Presumable any major French library or archive.

Rgds
Dave

18090683053e30f485b6c4edbb3fed99a498a651.pdf