NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
Excerpts from the First Plenary Session
The Geneva Conference
Indochina Phase
May 8, 1954
The French Proposals
".…The French Government is thus confident that it has done everything in its power to put an end to the conflict. Not only has it removed all reason for this conflict to exist by recognizing fully and unreservedly the independence of Viet-Nam, Laos and Cambodia but, furthermore, the French Goverment has manifested for a long time its readiness and its desire of obtaining a reasonable settlement which would allow for the hostilities to be brought to an end. This is the main and primary task assigned to this Conference.…
"We propose that the Conference should, first of all, declare that it adopt the principle of a general cessation of hostilities in Indochina based upon the necessary guarantees of security.…
".…in agreeing upon the withdrawal of the invading forces and the restoration of the territorial integrity of those states.…
".…For France there is a Viet-Nam state of which the unity, territorial integrity and independence must be respected.…
".…the most just solution of the political problem can be found and finally assured only when the population is in a position to express in complete freedom its sovereign will by means of free elections. For the present moment I repeat the problem is that of bringing about a cessation of hostilities and the guaranteeing of that cessation. These guarantees, in our opinion, must be of two kinds.
".…the regular forces of the two parties would be brought together in clearly demarcated regrouping zones.…the implementation of the agreement should be placed under the supervision of international commissions.…
".…the agreement.…should be guaranteed in appropriate conditions by the states participating in the present Conference.…
".…The French proposal is as follows:
"I. Vietnam
- 1. All regular units to be assembled in assembly areas to be defined by the Conference on the basis of proposals by the Commanders-in-Chief.
