Canada and Lao PDR are partners in l’Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (International Organization of La Francophonie [IOF]), which is dedicated to the goals of promoting peace, cooperation and sustainable development. Our shared membership allows us to work together to celebrate and support the international French-speaking community. Francophonie is an international organization of governments of countries where French is either the mother tongue or a customary language, where a signification portion of the population comprises francophones, or where there is a significant affiliation with the French language or culture.
The organization was created in 1970 and comprises 56 member states and 19 observers, which represents more than 30% of the United Nations’ members and accounts for 890 million people, which includes 220 million francophones. The IOF organizes multilateral cooperation and political activities that benefit French-speaking populations.
French History of Laos
The French colonial era of Southeast Asia began with the French conquest of Saigon, which contributed to the establishment of French Indochina. The area was attractive to France mainly because the Mekong River offered a gateway to China. In 1886, France signed a treaty with Siam (Thailand) and the following year the French staked their claim to the kingdom based on its status as a tributary of Vietnam, which France already controlled. In 1893, the Siamese surrendered to France all territory east of the Mekong River, and all Lao territories were brought together as a single administrative unit. France put little into the country; its colonial policies could be described as “benign neglect.” The colonial government was barely staffed and the royal court managed its own affairs while the territories were run by Vietnamese civil servants. In an effort to remove the Lao people from Siamese influence during the 1930s and '40s, a small French-educated Lao elite promoted Lao language and literature, produced the first Lao history books and established Buddhist institutes.
The Second World War shattered French supremacy and strengthened nationalist sentiment in Laos. The Japanese occupied French Indochina in March 1945 and parts of Laos were given to Thailand. The Japanese forced King Sisavangvong to declare independence from France but in September 1945, following Japan’s surrender, the king moved to re-establish the French protectorate. Prime minister and hereditary viceroy Prince Phetsarath, leader of a resistance movement called Lao Issara (free Lao), defied the king and declared a unified and independent Laos. The king dismissed Prince Phetsarath, put him under house arrest, and in March 1946 retook his throne as the constitutional monarch of Laos. The French invaded a few days later.
In April 1946, the French endorsed the unity of Laos as a constitutional monarchy within the French union. The revolutionary organization Viet Minh launched offensives against French rule in Vietnam, and the French government realized it would have to lighten its colonial burden to preserve its former empire. The Lao Issara, whose leaders had fled to Siam, were invited to attend formal negotiations for Laos’s greater autonomy. The leaders of the Lao Issara, unimpressed by French conditions for independence, established an alliance with Vietnam, which quickly gained a foothold in the northeastern provinces.
The French government granted full sovereignty to Laos and Cambodia in 1953 and withdrew. In May 1954, the French suffered a calamitous defeat at Ðiên Biên Phú, and sued for peace at the Geneva Conference of 1954, the conditions of which ended French involvement in Southeast Asia.
Learn more: International Organization of La Francophonie