Independent for 80 years

VIETNAM CELEBRATES: TRACES OF FRANCE'S COLONIAL LEGACY REMAIN

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Crispy baguettes, grand colonial facades and chattering Franco-phone schoolchildren are lingering reminders of the French presence that once dominated Vietnam. But there are darker legacies too—in the notorious prisons that enforced foreign rule and memorials to those slain fighting for independence.

As Vietnam marked the 80th anniversary of the declaration of independence from its European ruler with a grand parade yesterday, 24-year-old Huynh Nhung came to the capital, Hanoi, to take it all in.

“There are both good and bad sides,” she said, touring Hoa Lo Prison—now a memorial partly dedicated to France’s brutal treatment of Vietnamese colonial dissidents.

“France left a lot of pain for the country,” she said, a few days before the event.