French Minister of the Armed Forces visits Dien Bien Phu relics site

French Minister of the Armed Forces Sebastien Lecornu, who was in Vietnam to attend celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the Dien Bien Phu Victory, visited the A1 Hill and the command bunker of French General De Castries in Dien Bien Phu city, the northern province of Dien Bien, on May 6.

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Minister Lecornu calls at Hill A1, where the fiercest battle took place in the Dien Bien Phu Campaign in 1954. He is accompanied by Secretary of State Patricia Miralles and several French war veterans.

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Minister Lecornu calls at Hill A1, where the fiercest battle took place in the Dien Bien Phu Campaign in 1954. He is accompanied by Secretary of State Patricia Miralles and several French war veterans.

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Ngo Tuong Minh, a 12-year-old student, performs the song “Hello Vietnam” and presents the Vietnamese flag to a French war veteran who fought at Dien Bien Phu seven decades ago.

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Lecornu is the first French Minister of the Armed Forces to visit Dien Bien Phu, and follows in the footsteps of President Francois Mitterr and and Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, who visited it in 1993 and 2018.

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The French Minister of the Armed Forces and former French war veterans listen to an introduction to the historical site Hill A1.

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Minister Lecornu walks along through trenches around the De Castries bunker.

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Inside the De Castries bunker, the Minister learns about the Dien Bien Phu campaign through a diagram. ecornu has accepted Vietnam’s invitation to visit and attend a grand ceremony marking 70 years of the Dien Bien Phu victory over French colonialism (May 5, 1954 – 2024), demonstrating the good relations, the friendship and the common desire of the two countries to strengthen their partnership.