## MÉTIS CHILD REMOVAL IN FRENCH INDOCHINA

Change and Continuity from the Second World War to Decolonisation

By: Ida Kaae Antonisen History

<!-- image -->

ABSTRACT: In this article, the practice of removing mixed-race, or métis , children from their indigenous mothers in French Indochina is examined. While the changed circumstances of the Second World War and the ensuing process towards decolonisation forced colonial authorities to rethink their priorities, the practice  of  child  removal  remained  constant.  Against  the  backdrop  of  this  persistent  and  relatively unchanging practice, changes and continuities in rhetoric about and justifications for child removal reveal underlying colonial interests and anxieties around race, memory, and maintaining French influence, even beyond the official end of French colonial rule.

KEYWORDS: colonial practices, métissage , repatriation, FOEFI, métis protection system

<!-- image -->

## CULTURE AND HISTORY Nr. 02 December 2024

## Introduction

All  throughout  the  colonial  period,  and  in  many  cases  decades  beyond  formal  decolonisation, removal of indigenous or half-indigenous children remained a widespread practice, whose ubiquity and durability are indicative of its central role in European colonial endeavours (Firpo & Jacobs 2019: 530-1). The systematic removal of métis ,  or  mixed-race,  children  in  the  colony  of  French Indochina (present-day Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos) differed from more well-known cases in settler colonial contexts, such as the Residential School system in Canada and the Stolen Generations of  Australia.  While  child  removal  in  settler  colonial  contexts  was  informed  by  a  'logic  of elimination', as phrased by Patrick Wolfe, in Indochina, where colonisers never made up more than a tiny fraction of the total population, 1 different motivations were at play (Firpo & Jacobs 2019: 533-5).

While the forced removal of children within settler colonial contexts is well-researched, the removal of métis children is widely overlooked in general works on the French possessions in Southeast Asia, including  Indochina,  and  very  little  studied  as  a  separate  field  of  inquiry,  despite  the  scale  and persistence of the practice, from the early years of colonisation and well into the postcolonial period. One notable exception is the work of Christina E. Firpo, who identifies one primary, overarching purpose of child removal; métis children  were  to  'aid  in  reproducing  the  French  nation'  (Firpo 2016: 6).  In  the  following,  I  will  attempt  to  cast  light  on  the  changing  faces  of  this  project  by examining changes and continuities in colonial concerns surrounding métis children. First, I will examine  how  looking  at  developments  in  Indochina  from  the  Second  World  War  through decolonisation from the perspective of the ' métis issue' can reveal nuances to colonial perceptions of race as they were challenged by changing circumstances. Next will follow a brief discussion of what the lens of métis children and their mothers can reveal about colonial views of gender relations, and how these often-overlooked groups can contribute to a more nuanced understanding of agency in the colonial setting.

1 Estimates say most likely no more than 0.2 percent at any one time; see Ha 2014: 122-33.

## CULTURE AND HISTORY Nr. 02

## December 2024

Eric Jennings points out how, when examining colonial questions, metropole-centred approaches often reveal  mostly the rhetoric of colonising states,  with  significant  discrepancies  between  such rhetoric and 'much more overlooked and revealing practices' (Jennings 2001: 5). In this article, métis child removal will serve as one such practice. The phenomenon of child removal  is especially suited for critical examination of colonial rhetoric, since this practice  remained relatively stable and unchanged  throughout  the  colonial  period  and  beyond.  Thus,  when  held  up  against  the  everchanging  justifications  for  the  practice,  gaps  appear  which  reveal  the  underlying  motivations, anxieties, and interests behind colonial rhetoric on the ' métis issue'.

## Development of the ' Métis Issue'

French men fathered children in Southeast Asia for at least a few centuries before the beginning of formal colonisation, due to French trade and missionary activity. In the years between 1858 and 1893,  the  French  established  colonies  and  protectorates  in  what  was  to  become  known  as  the Indochina Union, and the increased military and imperial interest in the area led to a larger French presence (Brocheux & Hémery 2009: 15-17). The largely military nature of the French presence meant that there was a significant gender imbalance in the European inhabitants of Indochina, since European women were only encouraged to immigrate to the colony at a later stage (Ha 2014: 12532). In the early years of colonisation, colonial authorities thus held a general acceptance of the practice of concubinage, where French men would form relationships and cohabitate with native women. Such unions were considered beneficial by French men and colonial authorities alike, since concubines  provided  domestic  labour  and  comforts  free  of  charge,  while  also  regulating  sexual activity and staving off the perceived threats to the men's moral and physical health associated with prostitution and homosexual activity. Moreover, intimate relationships with local women helped French men learn local languages and customs (Ha 2014: 29-31).

Increasingly  rigid  ideas  of  racial  categorisation  and  the  subsequent  attempts  to  maintain  clear distinctions between the French colonisers and the native colonial subjects eventually brought an end to official condonement of concubinage, and colonists were instead encouraged to marry the increasing number of European women in Indochina, and establish domestic situations modelled

## CULTURE AND HISTORY Nr. 02

## December 2024

on metropolitan bourgeois households (Ha 2014: 29-31). The change in official attitudes did not, however, stop white men from establishing relationships with native women, and they continued to do so throughout the colonial period. As these unions were generally temporary and seldom took the form of legally binding marriages, the result was a growing population of children who were never  legally  recognised  by  their  French  fathers  and  were  left  with  their  native  mothers  in  the indigenous  milieu  once  the  father  went  back  to  the  metropole,  was  stationed  elsewhere  in  the empire, died, or simply ended the relationship with his Asian partner, or in cases where the birth of a child was the result of rape or transactional sex.

Such children came to be referred to as métis ,  or  mixed-blood. Their position in the empire was tenuous and ambiguous in a number of ways, which was underlined by the fact that métis often found themselves struggling to fit into the social as well as administrative structures of the colony, since there was no official legal category for métis . Métis should thus primarily be understood as a social  category which came into being as a result of, and developed in tandem with, the French colonial  presence  (Saada  2012:  8-9).  While  interracial  unions,  or métissage ,  was  a  reality  in practically all parts of the empire, the ' métis issue' was first problematised as a significant imperial challenge, and potential threat, in the context of Indochina, which functioned as a sort of colonial 'laboratory', where potential solutions were formulated and subsequently exported to different parts of  the  empire  (Saada  2012:  3-4).  This  perceived  colonial  issue  was  primarily  taken  up  by decentralised,  civil  so-called  protection  societies,  who  would  seek  out  'abandoned'  children, including those who were in fact living with their mothers, and remove them from the home on grounds of 'moral' abandonment, the exact definition of which was determined by metropolitan French laws, or simply at the discretion of protection society officials.

## Overlapping Continuities in Vichy Racial Views in Indochina

Developments during the Second World War brought about significant changes to colonial rule and its  associated  ideas  of  race  in  Indochina,  while  at  the  same  time  containing  strong  elements  of continuity regarding both the preceding and following decades. When seen through the lens of ideas and practices associated with métis children, the 1940-45 period was characterised by demographic

## CULTURE AND HISTORY Nr. 02

## December 2024

concerns which had been prevalent since the First World War as well as throughout the interwar period and were simply exacerbated by wartime conditions. At the same time, the uncertainty of war, and not least the presence of Japanese occupying forces, brought about new anxieties about retaining French influence in the colony. This was to remain a defining feature of French attitudes and practices regarding the métis of Indochina well beyond formal decolonisation.

As such, developments regarding the ' métis issue' show the era of the Second World War to be an intersection of enduring and persistent colonial agendas of preceding and subsequent years, where the  uncertain  conditions  of  war  caused  a  shift  in  priorities  and  mentalities  regarding  race, citizenship, and nationhood. Continuities and change alike in the colony are strongly tied to the influence of the authoritarian Vichy regime, headed by Philippe Pétain, whose establishment in the metropole in 1940 and close collaboration with the German National Socialist regime was quickly felt in Indochina. In June of 1940, the Governor General of Indochina, Georges Catroux, who later joined de Gaulle and Free France, was dismissed. He was replaced as Governor General by Jean Decoux, a loyal Pétainist naval officer, and the everyday administration of Indochina was brought under  the  control  of  Vichy  officials  (Jennings  2001:  131-8).  Developments  in  Indochina  were heavily influenced by Vichy ideology, and Pétain's Révolution nationale , centred around the motto of travail, famille, patrie ('work, family, fatherland'), was exported to the colonial context (Jennings 2001: 20-22).

Views  of  race  in  Indochina  as  well  as  the  metropole  during  the  Vichy  years  were,  overall,  a continuation  of  pre-war  views,  with  a  strong  focus  on  racial  categorisations  and  hierarchies. However, from the late 1930's, views of racial categorisations in Indochina began to diverge from those in the metropole in significant ways.

In  the  metropole,  the  establishment  of  the  Vichy  regime  meant  an  abrupt  departure  from  the republicanism of the preceding period. Regarding views of race, however, the change was much less drastic. The preoccupation with racial mixing and 'degeneration' and the associated increasingly rigid views of racial categorisation which had become widely accepted in Europe by the 1930's were also prevalent in republican France, where an exclusive view of racial categorisation developed. In the  metropolitan,  exclusive  understanding  of  race,  mixed-race  individuals  were  generally  not

## CULTURE AND HISTORY Nr. 02

## December 2024

considered  part  of  the  white  racial  group.  This  exclusive  view  of  race  was  a  result  of  anxieties surrounding  interracial  unions  engendered  by  the  pronatalist  movement,  which  developed  in response to concerns about population deficits during the First World War, and remained prevalent through the Second World War (Firpo 2007: 209).

In Indochina, republican ideals never gained much traction among colonial administrators in the first place; French colonial rule had maintained an authoritarian character throughout the Third Republic (1870-1940), and the assimilationist policies which had developed in some of the older colonial possessions were not applied in Indochina (Jennings 2001: 133). Despite this, an inclusive view of race developed in Indochina from the end of the 1930's, marked especially by the colonywide implementation of a new policy regarding métis children in 1940. The policy stated that métis children with lighter skin were to be considered part of the colony's white population, and that abandoned métis (who in many cases were in fact living with their indigenous mothers) were to be placed in the métis care system and raised as Frenchmen (Firpo 2007: 203-205). The divergence between views of race in the metropole and the colony is telling; the focus on the children's physical attributes shows that racial categorisation and hierarchisation remained as central to the ordering of colonial society as it had ever been, but that different interests were at play than in the metropole.

Firpo identifies  a  new  set  of  colonial  concerns  which  developed  around  the  years  of  the  Second World War; a perceived demographic imbalance between native and French populations, and the necessity  of  ensuring  a  lasting  white,  French  presence  in  the  colony.  Because  of  their  perceived possession of white racial characteristics, métis children were seen by colonial authorities and the newly centralised métis protection organisation, the Fondation Jules Brévié, 2 as a potential solution to  these  issues  (Firpo  2007:  209).  Thus,  the  Pétainist  Governor  General,  Decoux,    ordered  an intensified effort to locate fatherless métis children, remove them from their mothers, and give them a French education, so that they could become part of a permanent, white elite in the colony, or settle in areas with a shortage of agricultural labour or a perceived demographic imbalance due to

2 Named after the Governor General of 1936-1939, who was behind the initiative to centralise métis protection under the colonial government in 1939 (Firpo 2016: 82-85). Brévié since became secretary of state to the colonies in the Vichy government in the metropole.

## CULTURE AND HISTORY Nr. 02

## December 2024

'indigenous overpopulation' (Firpo 2016: 92-8). Thus, new circumstances lent new meaning to the practice of removing fatherless métis , whose ambiguous position in the racial hierarchy now made authorities  see  them  as  a  solution  to  colonial  problems,  rather  than  primarily  as  a  threat  to  the colonial order.

However, strong continuities  in  such  colonial  concerns  can  still  be  seen  in  the  rhetoric  used  by Governor General Decoux and the Fondation Jules Brévié, which holds clear echoes of pre-war concerns about maintaining 'white prestige' in the colony. Maintaining the standing of the colony's white population, both materially, politically, and socially, had been a central concern of colonial authorities since the early days of colonisation, and the risk of abandoned métis falling into poverty and prostitution had been a central element of rhetoric on child removals since the early years of the practice. In a letter from 1921, François Baudoin, the Resident Superior of Cambodia, writes to the Governor General of Indochina on the subject of the area's métis protection society, la Société de protection de l'enfance de Phnom-Penh. In this letter, he stresses that protection societies taking in abandoned métis are essential to the upholding of 'the prestige of the French reputation in the colony'. 3 In his letter, Baudoin reflects the main focal point of the ' métis issue' at the time, namely, that métis abandoned by their European fathers would become 'rebellious outcasts' 4  who would threaten  the  colonial  regime;  a  concern  which  was  reiterated  by  protection  society  officials  two decades later (Firpo 2016: 92).

The interplay between continuities and changes in the justifications of métis child  removal show that changed perceptions of colonial problems brought about a nuancing of the otherwise rigid racial categorisations of the colony. However, the telling gaps between metropolitan and colonial views of race, as well as the continuity in rhetoric on white prestige, reveal that the practice of child removal during the years of the Second World War was still primarily carried out in order to further the interests  of  colonial  authorities.  Eventually,  the  underlying  understandings  of  racial  belonging

3 '(…) le prestige du nom français dans la colonie'; Lettre du Résident Supérieur au Cambodge au GGI au sujet de la Société de protection de l'enfance de Phnom-Penh - circulaire 26C du 24 juillet 1921, FR ANOM GGI//15298.

4 '(…) des révoltés rejetés'; Lettre du Résident Supérieur au Cambodge au GGI au sujet de la Société de protection de l'enfance de Phnom-Penh - circulaire 26C du 24 juillet 1921, FR ANOM GGI//15298.

## CULTURE AND HISTORY Nr. 02

## December 2024

showed their brittle nature when met with the reality of the Japanese presence in the colony, which forced colonial authorities to rethink their relationship with the indigenous population, as well as the métis .

## The Japanese Presence and Other Ambiguities

The implementation of Vichy policy in Indochina was made complicated early on by the entry of Japanese forces into Tonkin in September 1940. An important aspect of Japan's imperial project of creating  a  Greater  East  Asia  Co-prosperity  Sphere  (GEACS)  was  the  liberation  of  East  Asian countries  from  European  colonial  powers  in  favour  of  bringing  them  under  Japanese  influence. Throughout  the  early  years  of  the  1940's,  the  European  powers  lost  control  of  all  colonial possessions east of India. In Indochina, however, the French colonial administration was retained until 1945, despite the obvious tension this caused within the framework of the GEACS (Shiraishi & Furuta 1992: 59-60). The Japanese, too, were faced with the complexity of racial relations in the former European colonies, where, just as in Indochina, the European presence had caused Eurasian (mixed-race European and Asian) populations to develop.

Japan's policy towards the Eurasian populations of the Southeast Asian territories where it ousted European colonial powers was not consistent, but was adapted to the circumstances of each, ranging from  actively  seeking  out  Eurasians  on  account  of  their  cultural  and  linguistic  competences,  to sparing them from European internment, to active hostility. Japan's policy towards the métis of Indochina was less hostile than in other parts of occupied Southeast Asia, likely due to the lack of French  resistance.  Some  mothers  nonetheless  feared  for  the  safety  of  their métis children  and attempted to disguise their European features (Firpo 2016: 88).

This illustrates the further ambiguity that the presence of the Japanese lent to the métis population's position in the racial categorisations of the colony. Now, the very features that were used by colonial authorities and the Fondation Jules Brévié to determine a child's rightful place in the white racial group - and their access to the associated privileges - were at the same time seen to exclude them from racial affinity with the Japanese and thus putting them in a position of perceived risk. Thus, the  Japanese  presence  brought  about  new  uncertainties  for  the  colony's métis population.  The

## CULTURE AND HISTORY Nr. 02

## December 2024

population of fatherless métis were in turn considered a possible solution to some of the problems colonial authorities faced due to the Japanese presence and, especially, due to their own policies in response to it. In an attempt to steer local traditionalist elites away from Communism as well as to counter  the  pan-Asian  propaganda  of  the  Japanese  occupying  force,  the  colonial  authorities implemented policies that favoured native elites. For example, Governor General Decoux opened colonial  administrative  posts  to  local  elites  in  an  attempt  to  court  them  away  from  pan-Asian sentiment (Jennings 2001: 165-7). This plan was delayed by the opposition of Vichy higher-ups, but came to fruition in 1942, after Jules Brévié became secretary of state to the colonies (Jennings 2001: 165-6).

Part of the decision to include indigenous elites in the colonial administrative apparatus should most likely be seen in light of the ' métis issue'.  The Fondation Jules Brévié thought up a strategy for turning abandoned métis children into a permanent white elite which could serve as a buffer between the colonial authorities and local elites (Jennings 2001: 165-6; Firpo 2016: 91). This was one of the ways in which the métis population came to be seen, on account of their perceived whiteness, as a resource  within  the  inclusive  but  strictly  hierarchical  perceptions  of  race  of  the  Vichy  colonial period.

One of  the  central  elements  of  colonial  demographic  concerns  of  the  period  was  the  ability  to maintain a sufficient white presence in the city of Dalat, which was to become the colonial capital in 1946, to uphold its status as a little European island in the colony (Jennings 2011: 19). As part of this vision, in 1939, a so-called École des Enfants de Troupe, a military academy, specifically for métis youth, was opened near Dalat. At first, métis children were placed in academies for indigenous children,  but  the  colonial  authorities  were  nervous  that métis children  admitted  to  indigenous schools would not develop sufficient French identities, or might come to resent colonial authorities for being placed in schools with colonial subjects, echoing earlier anxieties about métis children who were  left  in  the  indigenous  milieu  (Firpo  2016:  81-2).  The  same  anxieties  that  lay  behind  the creation of a school specifically for métis also created a renewed sense of urgency to remove métis children from their mothers (Firpo 2016: 82).

## CULTURE AND HISTORY Nr. 02 December 2024

As predicted by critics, the official program of the Vichy regime did not serve its purpose in the colonial setting, and with the liberation of the metropole in 1944, the regime and its collaborationist policies were discredited with the beginning of the so-called épuration légale ('legal purge'), the series of trials where thousands of people were found guilty of treason owing to their collaboration with the Vichy regime and, by extension, the German occupying force. As for the colonies, the majority had come to support de Gaulle by 1943 (Namba 2019: 520). In Indochina, however, the Vichy regime remained in place almost until the end of the war, only being dismantled by the March 1945 coup  by  the  Japanese.  The  approach  to métis children  became  one  arena  within  which  the construction of collective French memory of the contentious legacy of the Vichy years was carried out.

## Blurring the Lines: Child Removal as a (Post)Colonial Practice

In  January  of  1946,  the  Fondation  Jules  Brévie  was  dissolved  by  the  newly  formed  Democratic Republic  of  Vietnam.  This  decision  was  largely  ignored  by  protection  society  members,  who disregarded DRV law, but the colonial government likewise decided to dissolve the organisation because of its association with Jules Brévié, due to his affiliation with the Vichy government (Firpo 2016:  116).  The métis protection  system  went  back  to  being  a  civilian  undertaking  with  state support, but remained largely centralised in an organisation which became known as the Fédération des Oeuvres de l'Enfance Française d'Indochine, or FOEFI (Firpo 2016: 106-7). The fall of the Vichy regime as well as the discreditation of many of the doctrines of scientific racism after the war brought with it new perceptions of racial belonging. Within the métis protection system, this meant a  further  departure  from  rigid  racial  categorisations  and  the  ubiquitous  focus  on  white  racial characteristics.

With the outbreak of the Indochina War in 1946, the vision of métis children ensuring the French presence in the colony, a sentiment which had emerged during the Second World War, also took on new meaning, and new potency. Throughout the Indochina War, colonial authorities saw the removal and institutionalisation of métis children as a means to prevent them from defecting to the

## CULTURE AND HISTORY Nr. 02

## December 2024

anticolonial Vietnamese forces, as métis joining the ranks of the anticolonial movement would pose a political threat as well as a threat to French prestige (Firpo 2016: 106). At the same time, métis children who were imbued with French culture and values through the protection system could provide a way of ensuring continued French influence in Indochina as the colony was fighting for independence.

During the Indochina War, and after its end and thus the end of the official French colonial presence in Indochina, changing anxieties surrounding the ' métis issue' contributed to one of the most drastic changes in the otherwise stable practice of métis child removal - the evacuation, or 'repatriation', of métis children to the metropole. The new protection system leadership feared for the safety of métis children in Indochina. Their perceived potential for retaining French influence in Indochina, which was seen as desirable  by  the métis leadership,  was  seen  in  quite  the  opposite  light  by  the Vietnamese  independence  movement,  who  saw  them  rather  as  reminders  of  French  colonial oppression (Firpo 2016: 107).

Thus, the métis protection system brought large numbers of métis children to France, where they attempted to reunite them with their fathers or paternal families or have them adopted by French families  (Firpo  2016:  124-5).  Those  who  weren't  adopted  were  placed  in  FOEFI  orphanages  or religious  institutions  where  they  continued  to  receive  a  'French'  education  and  upbringing, similarly to the practice in the colony in the preceding decades.

The métis children's transitioning from the colonial to the metropolitan context highlights how race was still very much a factor post-1945 - and how perceptions of race differed between colony and metropole. 'Repatriated' métis children often grew up to be 'socially displaced and déclassé' (Firpo 2016: 133). While their perceived white racial characteristics had set them apart from the indigenous population in the colony, in France their Asian heritage was what stood out, and they were subjected to persisting racial prejudices. In this way, the practice of 'repatriation' exposes the meanings that were constructed around métis children in the colony to be just that - constructs created so serve a specific  purpose  in  the  colonial  setting,  but  which  took  on  new,  unforeseen  meaning  in  the metropole. At the same time, the FOEFI continued to use racial characteristics to determine whether

## CULTURE AND HISTORY Nr. 02 December 2024

to 'repatriate' children, belying the idea of a clean break with the racial categorisations of the Vichy years.

After the end of the Indochina War in 1954 and the subsequent end of the French colonial presence in Indochina, the FOEFI continued to operate, invoking colonial-era laws which were no longer in place to legitimise the continued practice of child removal. Firpo has pointed out this continuity in legal  justification  as  an  example  of  the  'increasingly  blurry  distinction  between  colonial  and postcolonial eras in Franco-Vietnamese history' (Firpo 2016: 132). This blurring of lines caused significant friction between FOEFI and the French authorities, who feared for France's reputation and diplomatic relations in Vietnam (Firpo 2016: 132-3).

After 1954, the métis issue had become an issue of memory for both the French authorities and the FOEFI,  but  with  very  different meanings  ascribed to the continued  child removals  and 'repatriations'. While the French state was firmly focused on shaping the collective memory of the colonial era in Indochina as a closed chapter, the FOEFI saw the - in their view - benevolent act of métis repatriation as a means of maintaining a positive memory and a degree of legitimacy for the French empire in France as well as in the former colony, even as the French presence in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos was at an end (Firpo 2016: 126).

Seen from the perspective of the FOEFI, it was not a given that the departure of a formal colonial presence meant the complete retraction of French influence, or the relegation of the colonial project to a shameful corner of national memory. For the FOEFI, the symbolically significant mission of protecting métis children  in  Vietnam  maintained  a  degree  of  legitimacy  for  the  colonial  project, which otherwise had very little left (Firpo 2016: 133).

One development which is very telling of official French motivations regarding the construction of a  clear  cut  in  collective  memory  between  France's  colonial  and  postcolonial  relationship  with Indochina is the partial takeover of the practice of métis child removal and repatriations around the mid-1960's by l'Assistance Publique, the French social services, who began bringing métis children to France through the public welfare system (Firpo 2016: 154). Now, the French authorities were not simply condoning but actively appropriating the practices of the métis protection system, with

## CULTURE AND HISTORY Nr. 02 December 2024

FOEFI even critiquing l'Assistance Publique for coercing mothers into giving up their children using much the same techniques the métis protection system had itself been employing for decades (Firpo 2016: 154).

This begs the question of why métis child removal and repatriations were partially taken over by the French authorities even as the independent métis care  system was allowed to remain in place for more than a decade, although the French authorities were at times working to defund or even close down the FOEFI. Here, the appropriation and continuation of FOEFI practice by authorities seems to suggest that the French authorities' issue was never with the continuation of the actual practice of  child  removal  after  formal  decolonisation,  but  rather  an  issue  of  optics  and,  significantly,  of memory.

It would seem that it was not so much the actual practices of the FOEFI that were unacceptable to French authorities, but rather the FOEFI as an inherently colonial actor, with its strong ties to the legal  structures  of  the  colonial  era  and  overlap  in  individual  actors  with  colonial  leadership, including the Vichy regime. As such, we see in the relationship between the FOEFI and French authorities  in  the  ambiguous  transition  from  the  colonial  to  the  postcolonial  how  the  changing contextualisation and justification of a relatively unchanging practice reveals underlying motivations. In France, the post-1954 preoccupation with the upholding of France's international reputation and the firm placement of the colonial era in Indochina within the realm of memory did not  immediately  bring  authorities  to  put  an  end  to  child  removal  and  'repatriation'.  Rather,  it caused them to gradually single out the pre-1954 system as embodied by the FOEFI as a symbol of colonial continuities which did not fit within the official French agenda of constructing the memory of a decisive break with the colonial era in Indochina.

## Gendered Anxieties and Colonial Agency

The racialised views of Frenchness that become apparent when examining the motivations for métis child removal are closely tied to heavily gendered rhetoric and justifications for the practice. Whereas pronatalist sentiment had led to a larger degree of acceptance of single mothers in the metropole, the same was not the case for single indigenous mothers in the colonial setting (Firpo 2016: 42).

## CULTURE AND HISTORY Nr. 02

## December 2024

One of the most persistent aspects of colonial authorities' and protections societies' rhetoric on métis child removal is the demonisation and vilification of indigenous mothers. From at least the turn of the century and until the end of the Vietnam War, indigenous single mothers of métis children were consistently  referred  to  as  prostitutes.  As  justification  for  removing  their  children,  authorities portrayed indigenous mothers as morally base, and claimed that they would return to prostitution once their French lovers left, leaving the métis children  to  grow  up  in  an  immoral  environment (Firpo 2016: 27-8).

Rhetoric on the métis children themselves reveals heavily gendered anxieties as well (Firpo 2016: 34). The concerns for white prestige, as described above, were expressed regarding métisse girls in very  particular  terms.  Their  potential  to  threaten  white  prestige  and  the  colonial  order  was understood  largely  in  terms  of  sexuality  and  reproduction,  just  as  the  solution  proposed  by protection societies was most often marriage with a respectable (preferably French) partner. In the context  of  post-war  'repatriations',  FOEFI  wards  in  the  metropole  were  encouraged  to  marry metropolitan French men and women (Firpo 2016: 146). For the FOEFI, marriage was a central means of ensuring that métis wards became integrated into metropolitan French society (Firpo 2016: 153). Especially for female wards, the FOEFI was preoccupied with monitoring their sexualities and sought to make them into good wives and mothers who would make attractive marriage partners (Firpo 2016: 146-7).

The preoccupation  with  the  sexuality  and  marriageability  of  'repatriated' métisse girls  reflects  a strong continuity in the interwoven concerns of class, race, and gender, which remained central to the ' métis issue' throughout the decades. The Resident Superior of Cambodia's letter from 1921 thus reflects a similar sentiment, as he emphasises that female wards of the métis protection system in Indochina 'most often find themselves marrying either our compatriots or natives occupying a certain  social  rank'. 5 Here,  marriage  of métisse girls  to  men  from  the  indigenous  population  of

5 '(…) trouvent le plus souvent à se marier soit avec de nos compatriotes soit avec des indigènes occupant un certain rang social'; Lettre du Résident Supérieur au Cambodge au GGI au sujet de la Société de protection de l'enfance de Phnom-Penh - circulaire 26C du 24 juillet 1921, FR ANOM GGI//15298.

## CULTURE AND HISTORY Nr. 02

## December 2024

Indochina is seen as acceptable, so long as it will not steer them into the lower classes and thus cause harm to white prestige.

Another aspect of child removal which remained constant even after the addition of 'repatriations' to the practice, was the coercive measures used to obtain custody of métis children, and the disregard for maternal consent, justified by the demonisation and vilification of indigenous mothers. Just as the FOEFI continued to use colonial-era laws to justify separating children from their mothers even after  decolonisation,  the  organisation  continued  to  use  the  same  bureaucratic  tactics  to  pressure mothers to give up their children (Firpo 2016: 138-9).

It is clear, however, that indigenous women and métis children themselves used similar bureaucratic measures to avoid removal and 'repatriation'. For example, there are examples of mothers, and métis children  themselves,  requesting  Vietnamese  naturalisation  for métis children  to  keep  the  FOEFI from being able to take them to France (Firpo 2016: 142). External circumstances also seem to have influenced indigenous mothers' sense of agency. After the 1973 Paris Peace Accords and the ensuing ceasefire and withdrawal of American troops, some mothers reclaimed children in FOEFI custody, and both mothers and children in some cases refused 'repatriation' (Firpo 2016: 158). On the other hand, after the fall of the Republic of Vietnam government in Saigon and the ensuing instability, large numbers of mothers of métis children actively requested having their children sent to France (Firpo 2016: 159). Additionally, there are cases, if few, where 'repatriated' métis children managed to get their mothers to France - or chose not to because of the emotional turmoil of separation and the FOEFI's insistence (truthful or not) that their mothers had willingly abandoned them (Firpo 2016: 159). In this way, while métis child removal was a fundamentally coercive colonial practice, indigenous women and their métis children also found opportunities to exercise agency and make choices for themselves within the framework of the practice. In this way, the perspective of métis child removal also reveals a more nuanced picture of colonial agency than the dichotomy between coercive colonisers and passive colonised populations.

## CULTURE AND HISTORY Nr. 02 December 2024

## Conclusions

In Indochina, the practice of métis child  removal remained strikingly unchanged throughout the colonial  period  and  beyond,  even  as  its  justifications  and  motivations  changed.  In  the  changed circumstances brought about by the war, and by colonial authorities' own policies, the fatherless métis of  the  colony  came  to  be  seen  as  a  resource,  rather  than  simply  a  threat.  The  changed motivations behind child removal, when held up against the constancy of the practice, thus reveal an instrumentalising view of métis children, which persisted for years after formal decolonisation. After the war, multiple meanings were assigned by different actors to the practice of child removal, now including the practice of  'repatriation'.  Despite  authorities'  and  protection  societies'  fairly consistent portrayal of métis protection work as a charitable and necessary undertaking, the many changes and incongruities in French justifications for child removal and 'repatriations' make it clear that the constant guiding principles of the practice were, ultimately, French concerns of empire and memory.

<!-- image -->

## CULTURE AND HISTORY Nr. 02 December 2024

## Literature

- Brocheux, Pierre, and Hémery, Daniel 2009: Indochina. An Ambiguous Colonization, 1858-1954 . Trans. Ly Lan Dill-Klein. University of California Press, Berkeley.
- Firpo, Christina E. 2007: 'Lost Boys: 'Abandoned' Eurasian Children and the Management of the Racial Topography in Colonial Indochina, 1938-1945'. French Colonial History no. 8: 203-221. https://doi.org/10.1353/fch.2007.0007
- Firpo, Christina E. 2016: The Uprooted. Race, Children, and Imperialism in French Indochina, 18901980 . University of Hawai'i Press, Honolulu. https://doi.org/10.21313/hawaii/9780824847579.001.0001
- Firpo, Christina E., and Jacobs, Margaret 2019: 'Taking Children, Ruling Colonies: Child Removal and Colonial Subjugation in Australia, Canada, French Indochina, and the United States, 1870-1950s'. Journal of World History 29, no. 4: 529-562. https://doi.org/10.1353/jwh.2018.0054
- Ha, Marie-Paule 2014: French Women and the Empire. The Case of Indochina . Oxford University Press, Oxford. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199640362.001.0001
- Jennings, Eric T. 2001: Vichy in the Tropics. Pétain's National Revolution in Madagascar, Guadeloupe, and Indochina, 1940-1944 . Stanford University Press, Stanford.
- Jennings, Eric T. 2011: Imperial Heights. Dalat and the Making and Undoing of French Indochina . University of California Press, Berkeley.
- Lettre du Résident Supérieur au Cambodge au GGI au sujet de la Société de protection de l'enfance de Phnom-Penh - circulaire 26C du 24 juillet 1921, Archives Nationales d'Outre-Mer (FR ANOM) GGI//15298 (http://www.archivesnationales.culture.gouv.fr/anom/fr/Action-culturelle/Dossiers-dumois/1904-FOEFI/Contexte.html).
- Namba, Chizuru 2019: 'The French Colonization and Japanese Occupation of Indochina during the Second World War: Encounters of the French, Japanese, and Vietnamese'. Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review 8, no. 2: 518-547. https://doi.org/10.1353/ach.2019.0019
- Saada, Emanuelle 2012: Empire's Children. Race, Filiation, and Citizenship in the French Colonies . Trans. Arthur Goldhammer. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226733098.001.0001
- Shiraishi, Masaya, and Furuta, Motoo 1992: 'Two Features of Japan's Indochina Policy During the Pacific War'. Shiraishi, Takashi and Furuta, Motoo (ed.) Indochina in the 1940s and 1950s . Cornell University Press, Ithaca.