The Paris Peace Accords: Starting Point of French and European Strategic Repositioning in Việt Nam[Les accords de Paris : coup de départ du repositionnement stratégique français et européen au Việt Nam]

The Paris Peace Accords of January 27, 1973, marked the launch of a joint strategic repositioning by France and the European Economic Community (EEC) towards Việt Nam. As Paris shifted from a Gaullist "politics of grandeur" to an influence-oriented European diplomacy, and as the EEC established European Political Cooperation (EPC), three intersecting logics emerged: the "export of détente" to Southeast Asia, the quest for a balanced relationship with the "two Việt Nams", and France's ambition to make Brussels a lever for its Asian policy. Between 1973 and 1976, this dynamic unfolded across diplomatic, commercial, and development cooperation arenas. The escalation of regional tensions from 1978 onward, however, precipitated a reversal and ushered in a decade of institutional gridlock: the Commission—and, above all, the European Parliament—sought to bypass member-state vetoes through humanitarian programmes, while France endeavoured to preserve a minimal diplomatic channel. The Việt Nam dossier thus became a laboratory for testing conditionality and competence-sharing within the EEC.