En tant que chercheur spécialisé en histoire coloniale, je m'interroge sur les contradictions apparentes de l'administration française en Indochine durant la Première Guerre mondiale. Alors que Sarraut promettait une "Collaboration franco-annamite" et une politique d'association, les sources documentent une exploitation économique accrue et une répression des mouvements nationalistes. Comment expliquer cette apparente contradiction entre les discours officiels et les pratiques réelles de l'administration coloniale ?
World War I

The French entry into World War I saw thousands of volunteers, primarily from the French protectorates of Annam and Tonkin, enlist for service in Europe, around 7 ⁄ 8 of all French Indochinese serving in Europe were Annamese and Tonkinese volunteers. This period also saw a number of uprisings in Tonkin and Cochinchina. French Indochina contributed significantly to the French war effort in terms of funds, products and human resources.

Prior to World War I the population of French Indochina stood at around 16,395,000 in 1913 with 14,165,000 being Vietnamese (Tonkinese, Annamese and Cochinchinese), 1,600,000 Cambodians, and 630,000 Laotians. These 16.4 million subjects were ruled over by only around 18,000 French civilians, militaries, and civil servants.

During this period governor-general of French Indochina Albert Sarraut promised a new policy of association and a "Franco-Annamese Collaboration" (French: Collaboration franco-annamite; Vietnamese: Pháp-Việt Đề huề) for the wartime contribution by the French Indochinese to their colonial masters. However, beside some liberal reforms, the French administration actually increased economic exploitation and ruthless repression of nationalist movements which rapidly resulted in a disappointment of the promises made by Sarraut.

During the early days of the war around 6 million Frenchmen were drafted causing a severe labour shortage in France. In response, the Undersecretary of State for Artillery and Munitions proposed to hire women, European immigrants, and French colonial subjects, these people were later followed with Chinese immigrants. From 1915 onwards, the French war effort's manpower needs started to rise significantly. Initially the French maintained a racial hierarchy where they believed in "martial races" making the early recruitment fall onus primarily on North Africa and French West Africa, but soon the need for additional manpower forced the French to recruit men from the Far East and Madagascar. Almost 100,000 Vietnamese were conscripts and went to Europe to fight and serve on the French battlefront, or work as labourers. Vietnamese troops also served in the Balkans and the Middle Eastern front. This exceptional human mobility offered the French Indochinese, mostly Vietnamese, the unique opportunity of directly access to social life and political debates that were occurring in contemporary France and this resulted in their aspirations to become "masters of their own destiny" to increase. Exposed to new political ideals and returning to a colonial occupation of their own country (by a ruler that many of them had fought and died for), resulted in some sour attitudes. Many of these troops sought out and joined the Vietnamese nationalist movement focused on overthrowing the French.

In 1925, communist and anti-French activist Nguyễn Ái Quốc (later known as Hồ Chí Minh) wrote "taken in chains, confined in a school compound... Most of them will never again see the sun of their country" and a number of historians like Joseph Buttinger and Martin Murray, treated his statement by Nguyễn Ái Quốc as an article of faith and believed that the Vietnamese men who participated in World War I were "forcibly recruited" by means of "terrorism", later historians would claim that the recruitment enterprise employed during this period was only "ostensibly voluntary". While there is some truth to these claims, the vast majority of the men who volunteered for service in Europe were indeed volunteers. Among the motivations of volunteering were both personal and economic ambitions, some French Indochinese volunteers wished to see what the world looked like "beyond the bamboo hedges in their villages" while others preferred the money and the opportunity to see what France actually looks like. Their service would expose them to the brutality of modern warfare and many would change their perception about many social norms and beliefs at home because of their experiences abroad.

Of the 93,000 French Indochinese soldiers and workers who came to Europe, most were from the poorest parts of Annam and Tonkin, which had been badly hit by famine and cholera, a smaller number (1,150) of French Indochinese soldiers and workers came from Cambodia. In Northeast France around 44,000 Vietnamese troops served in direct combat functions at both the Battle of the Vosges and the Battle of Verdun. French Indochinese battalions were also used in various logistics functions such as serving as drivers to transport soldiers to the front lines, stretcher bearers (brancardiers), or road crews. Vietnamese soldiers were also used to "sanitise" battle fields at the end of the war, where they would perform these duties in the middle of the cold European winters without being provided with warm clothes, in order to let the (White) French soldiers return to their homes earlier.

The financial expenses of the 93,000 French Indochinese labourers and soldiers sent to France during the war – salaries, pensions, family allocations, the levy in kind (mostly rice), and even the functioning of the Indochinese hospital – were entirely financed from the budget of French Indochina itself and not from France.

One of the effects of World War I on French Indochinese society was the introduction of a vibrant political press both in French and in the indigenous languages that led to the political radicalisation of a new generation of nationalists. Because most of the indigenous people that served in France and the rest of Europe during the War were Vietnamese these social and political developments affected the Vietnamese more. Because French Cochinchina was a direct French colony it enjoyed favourable legislation concerning the press which fostered a public sphere of oppositional political activism. Although these developments occurred throughout French Indochina they were more strongly felt in Cochinchina due to its more open society.

The French Indochinese in Europe experienced much more egalitarian social relations which were strongly contrasted with the racial hierarchy they experienced at home. In France the French Indochinese serving often engaged in comradery with the French and many had romantic relationships with French women, the latter being unthinkable in their home countries.

During this period, the French protectorates of Annam and Tonkin were initially ruled by the Duy Tân Emperor. However, in 1916, the Duy Tân Emperor was accused by the French of calling for his subjects to resist French rule and after his deposition he and his father were exiled to the island of La Réunion in the Indian Ocean. Thereafter, the Khải Định Emperor became the new monarch of Annam and Tonkin and he closely collaborated with the French administration. At the same time Cambodia was ruled by King Sisowath who was crowned in 1904 and cooperated closely with the French administration in his territory. King Sisowath attended the colonial exhibition in Marseilles in 1906 and was the King at the time of the retrocession of the provinces of Battambang and Siem Reap to Cambodia by the Siamese in April 1907. During the reign of King Sisowath there was "an inexorable increase in French control" and the French residents gained executive authority to issue royal decrees, appoint officials, and collect taxes. The French protectorate of Laos at the time was ruled by King Sisavang Vong, who was crowned king in 1904. King Sisavang Vong was trained at the Lycée Chasseloup-Laubat in Saigon and at the Colonial School in Paris. In 1914, the French built a new palace in Luang Prabang for him, and a new agreement with the French administration signed in 1917 allowed him only formal signs of royal power with actual power over Laos being in the hands of the French.

The Great War presented a number of opportunities for the indigenous French Indochinese people serving in the West that didn't exist before, notably for some individuals to obtain levels of education that were simply unattainable at home by acquiring more advanced technical and professional skills. For example Dr. Nguyễn Xuân Mai, who in 1910 became one of the first indigenous auxiliaries to graduate the Hanoi medical school, hoped to gain his PhD in France so he enlisted to fight in the war. In 1921 he would acquire his doctorate and he became one of the first Vietnamese doctors to enjoy the same rights as his French colleagues.

While World War I saw a number of new economic sectors develop in French Indochina, namely rubber plantations, mines, and other forms of agriculture, these were all French owned and the local trade to the great export-import houses was in the hands of the Overseas Chinese communities. Only a handful of Vietnamese landlords, moneylenders, and middlemen benefitted from the new economic opportunities that arose during this period as the colonial economy of exportation was designed to enrich the French at the expense of the indigenous population. During this same period the average livelihood of the indigenous peasantry was drastically decreased due to both direct taxation and indirect taxes the French used to finance ambitious public works programmes constructed using the corvée system.

Prior to the year 1914, the mise en valeur (development and improvement) of French Indochina was primarily financed by European French public loans, French private capital, and higher taxes on the local populations. But during the war French Indochina became completely responsible both for financing itself and the people they sent to Europe to fight in the war as investment funds from Metropolitan France completely stopped. This meant that taxation increased, more rice was being exported, and the locals purchased war bonds. French Indochina provided a Metropolitan France with large financial aid; between the years 1915 and 1920 of the 600,000,000 francs that France received from its colonial empire 367,000,000 francs were sent by French Indochina. Though historian Patrice Morlat places the initial financial contribution of French Indochina at 381,000,000 gold francs (valued at 997,000,000 euros in 2017), roughly 60% of all financial contributions Metropolitan France received from its colonial empire (excluding Algeria). Morlat further noted that French Indochina supplied 340,000 tonnes of raw materials to France during the course of the war, which amounted to 34% of all raw supplies that Metropolitan France received from its colonies. The shipping of these materials was threatened by the presence of German submarines.

World War I also saw the colonial government of Cochinchina authorising the creation of Vietnamese-language newspapers in 1916, this was done to secure popular support for the war effort, the colonial authorities hoped that this would create a loyal indigenous group of politically active people. The Cochinchinese colonial government offered financial support to these loyalist newspapers, but kept close control on the contents written in them to ensure a prevailing pro-French narrative. The editors of these newspapers were often retours de France (people back from France) and were kept under close surveillance as they often had connections to anti-French dissidents and activists. Among these newspapers was La Tribune indigène (The Indigenous Forum) launched in 1917 by the agronomist Bùi Quang Chiêu working together with the lawyer Dương Văn Giáo and journalist Nguyễn Phan Long. Afterwards they created La Tribune indochinoise (The Indochinese Forum) and in 1919 these three men would found the Indochinese Constitutionalist Party in Saigon. Because of these activities the French Surêté regarded their nationalism as dangerous.

The French invoked a supposed "German connection" between the Vietnamese revolutionaries and the German Empire, alleging that Hong Kong, Bangkok, and Beijing were the sight of German agents hoping to help the Vietnamese revolutionaries as they shared the same goal, namely to defeat the French.

World War I also saw a number of rebellions throughout French Indochina, in 1914 3 major uprisings happened throughout Vietnam, followed by a number of revolts in Cochinchina. From 1914 to 1917 members of the Tai Lue people led by Prince Phra Ong Kham (Chao Fa) of Muang Sing organised a long anti-French campaign, Hmong independence movements in Laos also challenged French rule in the country. 1914 also saw bands of Yunnanese revolutionaries invade French Indochina, who crossed the border and started attacking French military posts parading Chinese Republican flags, these rebels were later joined by various Laotian ethnic minorities (Lao, Kha and Black Tai). The joint Yunnanese and Laotian ethnic minority rebels spread misinformation claiming that "Paris has been crushed by the German Army " to make the French seem weaker. The motivations of this revolt are disputed as contemporary French colonial officials attributed it to Chinese opium smugglers, while the Canadian historian Geoffrey C. Gunn thinks that it was a political revolt. In February 1916 in Cochinchina supporters of Phan Xích Long marched on the Saigonese penitentiary where he was held demanding his release, this coincided with other uprisings in the Mekong Delta. The mandarin Trần Cao Văn engaged with he Duy Tân Emperor to try and stage a large rebellion in Annam in 1916, but their conspiracy was discovered and foiled by the French. In 1916 the Kingdom of Cambodia saw a 3 month uprising organised by between 30,000 and 100,000 peasants against both the mandatory corvée and the increased taxes, Australian historian Milton Osborne refers to this uprising as "The 1916 Affair", the circumstances leading up to this large revolt were directly caused by the war. 30 August 1917 saw the beginning of the Thái Nguyên uprising, which lasted until 1918.

The large amount of uprisings and rebellions that occurred during the war would inspire the creation of a political security apparatus that was used to find and arrest political dissidents in the post-war period.
L'extension de l'appareil de sécurité

Alors que Sarraut était déterminé à sécuriser la domination française sur le pays, il créa un puissant appareil de surveillance politique qui fonctionnait dans toute l'Indochine française. Il centralisa toutes les forces de police locales et développa un service de renseignement, des politiques qui conduiraient à la création de la Sûreté générale indochinoise, chargée de surveiller et de contrôler les activités anti-françaises à l'intérieur comme à l'extérieur de l'Indochine française.

La sécurité française fut renforcée en raison de craintes concernant l'implication allemande avec ses ennemis en Extrême-Orient. Gaston Ernest Liébert, le consul français à Hong Kong et figure majeure des services de renseignement coordonnés par le bureau des affaires politiques de l'Indochine française, a noté que les révolutionnaires vietnamiens et l'Allemagne partageaient le même intérêt (la défaite de la France). Liébert soutenait que les Indochinois français qui se rebellaient devaient être traités comme des traîtres à la France. Une autre raison de l'expansion de l'État policier était la crainte que l'envoi d'un grand nombre de soldats français pour combattre les Allemands n'incite à une insurrection générale similaire à celle que les Britanniques avaient vécue en Égypte.

En avril 1916, l'administrateur des services civils du Bureau des affaires politiques à Hanoï publia deux rapports volumineux qui détaillaient l'histoire parallèle de ce qu'il appelait le « Parti révolutionnaire annamite » (c'est-à-dire la Duy Tân Hội) et des sociétés secrètes de la Cochinchine française. Ces deux rapports se révélèrent très importants pour le Bureau des affaires politiques, car ils déclenchèrent une réforme à grande échelle de l'organisation, la transformant en une organisation parapluie. Les politiques de réforme furent mises en œuvre pour aider à contrôler le récit autour de la domination française par la police et la surveillance. Les forces de police coloniales furent connectées au « contrôle général des travailleurs et des tirailleurs indochinois », une force de police politique, alors que la présence militaire était réduite pour allouer davantage de soldats au front intérieur. En métropole, ces organisations de surveillance naissantes furent chargées de contrôler les 100 000 Indochinois français présents pour aider à combattre les Puissances centrales.

À la suite de la victoire communiste lors de la Révolution d'octobre, l'appareil de sécurité de l'Indochine française fut renforcé pour lutter contre le « danger bolchevique » dans les colonies. Bien que la Sûreté générale ait été créée pendant la Première Guerre mondiale, en 1922 elle fut élargie pour devenir un instrument plus performant pour surveiller et réprimer tout élément bolchevique potentiel, d'abord en métropole, puis en Indochine française. Les activités de la Sûreté générale indochinoise étaient gérées par le tout nouveau Département des affaires politiques. La Sûreté générale indochinoise serait utilisée comme l'outil principal pour recueillir des renseignements sur les éléments subversifs au sein de la société indochinoise française et pour effectuer des enregistrements à l'échelle nationale des suspects et des condamnés par les forces de police coloniales.

L'augmentation de la surveillance et de la répression s'accompagna d'une campagne de propagande visant à convaincre les populations indigènes de l'"illumination" du colonialisme français. Il fallait gagner à la cause à la fois la paysannerie indigène et les élites en leur expliquant les « nombreux avantages du colonialisme ». Le Bureau des affaires politiques rassembla un certain nombre d'élites vietnamiennes appartenant à l'intelligentsia indigène grâce à l'École française d'Extrême-Orient pour aider à l'effort de propagande pro-française.

Bien que les Français espéraient isoler les dissidents politiques en les enfermant dans des prisons, ces prisons se transformeraient ironiquement en « écoles » du nationalisme et du communisme, car la concentration d'un grand nombre d'ennemis politiques permettrait à ces derniers de communiquer entre eux, ce qui contribua à la croissance du communisme au sein de l'Indochine française.
### Query ###
En tant que chercheur spécialisé en histoire coloniale, je m'interroge sur les contradictions apparentes de l'administration française en Indochine durant la Première Guerre mondiale. Alors que Sarraut promettait une "Collaboration franco-annamite" et une politique d'association, les sources documentent une exploitation économique accrue et une répression des mouvements nationalistes. Comment expliquer cette apparente contradiction entre les discours officiels et les pratiques réelles de l'administration coloniale ?

### Main Text ###
World War I

The French entry into World War I saw thousands of volunteers, primarily from the French protectorates of Annam and Tonkin, enlist for service in Europe, around 7 ⁄ 8 of all French Indochinese serving in Europe were Annamese and Tonkinese volunteers. This period also saw a number of uprisings in Tonkin and Cochinchina. French Indochina contributed significantly to the French war effort in terms of funds, products and human resources.

Prior to World War I the population of French Indochina stood at around 16,395,000 in 1913 with 14,165,000 being Vietnamese (Tonkinese, Annamese and Cochinchinese), 1,600,000 Cambodians, and 630,000 Laotians. These 16.4 million subjects were ruled over by only around 18,000 French civilians, militaries, and civil servants.

During this period governor-general of French Indochina Albert Sarraut promised a new policy of association and a "Franco-Annamese Collaboration" (French: Collaboration franco-annamite; Vietnamese: Pháp-Việt Đề huề) for the wartime contribution by the French Indochinese to their colonial masters. However, beside some liberal reforms, the French administration actually increased economic exploitation and ruthless repression of nationalist movements which rapidly resulted in a disappointment of the promises made by Sarraut.

During the early days of the war around 6 million Frenchmen were drafted causing a severe labour shortage in France. In response, the Undersecretary of State for Artillery and Munitions proposed to hire women, European immigrants, and French colonial subjects, these people were later followed with Chinese immigrants. From 1915 onwards, the French war effort's manpower needs started to rise significantly. Initially the French maintained a racial hierarchy where they believed in "martial races" making the early recruitment fall onus primarily on North Africa and French West Africa, but soon the need for additional manpower forced the French to recruit men from the Far East and Madagascar. Almost 100,000 Vietnamese were conscripts and went to Europe to fight and serve on the French battlefront, or work as labourers. Vietnamese troops also served in the Balkans and the Middle Eastern front. This exceptional human mobility offered the French Indochinese, mostly Vietnamese, the unique opportunity of directly access to social life and political debates that were occurring in contemporary France and this resulted in their aspirations to become "masters of their own destiny" to increase. Exposed to new political ideals and returning to a colonial occupation of their own country (by a ruler that many of them had fought and died for), resulted in some sour attitudes. Many of these troops sought out and joined the Vietnamese nationalist movement focused on overthrowing the French.

In 1925, communist and anti-French activist Nguyễn Ái Quốc (later known as Hồ Chí Minh) wrote "taken in chains, confined in a school compound... Most of them will never again see the sun of their country" and a number of historians like Joseph Buttinger and Martin Murray, treated his statement by Nguyễn Ái Quốc as an article of faith and believed that the Vietnamese men who participated in World War I were "forcibly recruited" by means of "terrorism", later historians would claim that the recruitment enterprise employed during this period was only "ostensibly voluntary". While there is some truth to these claims, the vast majority of the men who volunteered for service in Europe were indeed volunteers. Among the motivations of volunteering were both personal and economic ambitions, some French Indochinese volunteers wished to see what the world looked like "beyond the bamboo hedges in their villages" while others preferred the money and the opportunity to see what France actually looks like. Their service would expose them to the brutality of modern warfare and many would change their perception about many social norms and beliefs at home because of their experiences abroad.

Of the 93,000 French Indochinese soldiers and workers who came to Europe, most were from the poorest parts of Annam and Tonkin, which had been badly hit by famine and cholera, a smaller number (1,150) of French Indochinese soldiers and workers came from Cambodia. In Northeast France around 44,000 Vietnamese troops served in direct combat functions at both the Battle of the Vosges and the Battle of Verdun. French Indochinese battalions were also used in various logistics functions such as serving as drivers to transport soldiers to the front lines, stretcher bearers (brancardiers), or road crews. Vietnamese soldiers were also used to "sanitise" battle fields at the end of the war, where they would perform these duties in the middle of the cold European winters without being provided with warm clothes, in order to let the (White) French soldiers return to their homes earlier.

The financial expenses of the 93,000 French Indochinese labourers and soldiers sent to France during the war – salaries, pensions, family allocations, the levy in kind (mostly rice), and even the functioning of the Indochinese hospital – were entirely financed from the budget of French Indochina itself and not from France.

One of the effects of World War I on French Indochinese society was the introduction of a vibrant political press both in French and in the indigenous languages that led to the political radicalisation of a new generation of nationalists. Because most of the indigenous people that served in France and the rest of Europe during the War were Vietnamese these social and political developments affected the Vietnamese more. Because French Cochinchina was a direct French colony it enjoyed favourable legislation concerning the press which fostered a public sphere of oppositional political activism. Although these developments occurred throughout French Indochina they were more strongly felt in Cochinchina due to its more open society.

The French Indochinese in Europe experienced much more egalitarian social relations which were strongly contrasted with the racial hierarchy they experienced at home. In France the French Indochinese serving often engaged in comradery with the French and many had romantic relationships with French women, the latter being unthinkable in their home countries.

During this period, the French protectorates of Annam and Tonkin were initially ruled by the Duy Tân Emperor. However, in 1916, the Duy Tân Emperor was accused by the French of calling for his subjects to resist French rule and after his deposition he and his father were exiled to the island of La Réunion in the Indian Ocean. Thereafter, the Khải Định Emperor became the new monarch of Annam and Tonkin and he closely collaborated with the French administration. At the same time Cambodia was ruled by King Sisowath who was crowned in 1904 and cooperated closely with the French administration in his territory. King Sisowath attended the colonial exhibition in Marseilles in 1906 and was the King at the time of the retrocession of the provinces of Battambang and Siem Reap to Cambodia by the Siamese in April 1907. During the reign of King Sisowath there was "an inexorable increase in French control" and the French residents gained executive authority to issue royal decrees, appoint officials, and collect taxes. The French protectorate of Laos at the time was ruled by King Sisavang Vong, who was crowned king in 1904. King Sisavang Vong was trained at the Lycée Chasseloup-Laubat in Saigon and at the Colonial School in Paris. In 1914, the French built a new palace in Luang Prabang for him, and a new agreement with the French administration signed in 1917 allowed him only formal signs of royal power with actual power over Laos being in the hands of the French.

The Great War presented a number of opportunities for the indigenous French Indochinese people serving in the West that didn't exist before, notably for some individuals to obtain levels of education that were simply unattainable at home by acquiring more advanced technical and professional skills. For example Dr. Nguyễn Xuân Mai, who in 1910 became one of the first indigenous auxiliaries to graduate the Hanoi medical school, hoped to gain his PhD in France so he enlisted to fight in the war. In 1921 he would acquire his doctorate and he became one of the first Vietnamese doctors to enjoy the same rights as his French colleagues.

While World War I saw a number of new economic sectors develop in French Indochina, namely rubber plantations, mines, and other forms of agriculture, these were all French owned and the local trade to the great export-import houses was in the hands of the Overseas Chinese communities. Only a handful of Vietnamese landlords, moneylenders, and middlemen benefitted from the new economic opportunities that arose during this period as the colonial economy of exportation was designed to enrich the French at the expense of the indigenous population. During this same period the average livelihood of the indigenous peasantry was drastically decreased due to both direct taxation and indirect taxes the French used to finance ambitious public works programmes constructed using the corvée system.

Prior to the year 1914, the mise en valeur (development and improvement) of French Indochina was primarily financed by European French public loans, French private capital, and higher taxes on the local populations. But during the war French Indochina became completely responsible both for financing itself and the people they sent to Europe to fight in the war as investment funds from Metropolitan France completely stopped. This meant that taxation increased, more rice was being exported, and the locals purchased war bonds. French Indochina provided a Metropolitan France with large financial aid; between the years 1915 and 1920 of the 600,000,000 francs that France received from its colonial empire 367,000,000 francs were sent by French Indochina. Though historian Patrice Morlat places the initial financial contribution of French Indochina at 381,000,000 gold francs (valued at 997,000,000 euros in 2017), roughly 60% of all financial contributions Metropolitan France received from its colonial empire (excluding Algeria). Morlat further noted that French Indochina supplied 340,000 tonnes of raw materials to France during the course of the war, which amounted to 34% of all raw supplies that Metropolitan France received from its colonies. The shipping of these materials was threatened by the presence of German submarines.

World War I also saw the colonial government of Cochinchina authorising the creation of Vietnamese-language newspapers in 1916, this was done to secure popular support for the war effort, the colonial authorities hoped that this would create a loyal indigenous group of politically active people. The Cochinchinese colonial government offered financial support to these loyalist newspapers, but kept close control on the contents written in them to ensure a prevailing pro-French narrative. The editors of these newspapers were often retours de France (people back from France) and were kept under close surveillance as they often had connections to anti-French dissidents and activists. Among these newspapers was La Tribune indigène (The Indigenous Forum) launched in 1917 by the agronomist Bùi Quang Chiêu working together with the lawyer Dương Văn Giáo and journalist Nguyễn Phan Long. Afterwards they created La Tribune indochinoise (The Indochinese Forum) and in 1919 these three men would found the Indochinese Constitutionalist Party in Saigon. Because of these activities the French Surêté regarded their nationalism as dangerous.

The French invoked a supposed "German connection" between the Vietnamese revolutionaries and the German Empire, alleging that Hong Kong, Bangkok, and Beijing were the sight of German agents hoping to help the Vietnamese revolutionaries as they shared the same goal, namely to defeat the French.

World War I also saw a number of rebellions throughout French Indochina, in 1914 3 major uprisings happened throughout Vietnam, followed by a number of revolts in Cochinchina. From 1914 to 1917 members of the Tai Lue people led by Prince Phra Ong Kham (Chao Fa) of Muang Sing organised a long anti-French campaign, Hmong independence movements in Laos also challenged French rule in the country. 1914 also saw bands of Yunnanese revolutionaries invade French Indochina, who crossed the border and started attacking French military posts parading Chinese Republican flags, these rebels were later joined by various Laotian ethnic minorities (Lao, Kha and Black Tai). The joint Yunnanese and Laotian ethnic minority rebels spread misinformation claiming that "Paris has been crushed by the German Army " to make the French seem weaker. The motivations of this revolt are disputed as contemporary French colonial officials attributed it to Chinese opium smugglers, while the Canadian historian Geoffrey C. Gunn thinks that it was a political revolt. In February 1916 in Cochinchina supporters of Phan Xích Long marched on the Saigonese penitentiary where he was held demanding his release, this coincided with other uprisings in the Mekong Delta. The mandarin Trần Cao Văn engaged with he Duy Tân Emperor to try and stage a large rebellion in Annam in 1916, but their conspiracy was discovered and foiled by the French. In 1916 the Kingdom of Cambodia saw a 3 month uprising organised by between 30,000 and 100,000 peasants against both the mandatory corvée and the increased taxes, Australian historian Milton Osborne refers to this uprising as "The 1916 Affair", the circumstances leading up to this large revolt were directly caused by the war. 30 August 1917 saw the beginning of the Thái Nguyên uprising, which lasted until 1918.

The large amount of uprisings and rebellions that occurred during the war would inspire the creation of a political security apparatus that was used to find and arrest political dissidents in the post-war period.

### Supplementary Text ###
L'extension de l'appareil de sécurité

Alors que Sarraut était déterminé à sécuriser la domination française sur le pays, il créa un puissant appareil de surveillance politique qui fonctionnait dans toute l'Indochine française. Il centralisa toutes les forces de police locales et développa un service de renseignement, des politiques qui conduiraient à la création de la Sûreté générale indochinoise, chargée de surveiller et de contrôler les activités anti-françaises à l'intérieur comme à l'extérieur de l'Indochine française.

La sécurité française fut renforcée en raison de craintes concernant l'implication allemande avec ses ennemis en Extrême-Orient. Gaston Ernest Liébert, le consul français à Hong Kong et figure majeure des services de renseignement coordonnés par le bureau des affaires politiques de l'Indochine française, a noté que les révolutionnaires vietnamiens et l'Allemagne partageaient le même intérêt (la défaite de la France). Liébert soutenait que les Indochinois français qui se rebellaient devaient être traités comme des traîtres à la France. Une autre raison de l'expansion de l'État policier était la crainte que l'envoi d'un grand nombre de soldats français pour combattre les Allemands n'incite à une insurrection générale similaire à celle que les Britanniques avaient vécue en Égypte.

En avril 1916, l'administrateur des services civils du Bureau des affaires politiques à Hanoï publia deux rapports volumineux qui détaillaient l'histoire parallèle de ce qu'il appelait le « Parti révolutionnaire annamite » (c'est-à-dire la Duy Tân Hội) et des sociétés secrètes de la Cochinchine française. Ces deux rapports se révélèrent très importants pour le Bureau des affaires politiques, car ils déclenchèrent une réforme à grande échelle de l'organisation, la transformant en une organisation parapluie. Les politiques de réforme furent mises en œuvre pour aider à contrôler le récit autour de la domination française par la police et la surveillance. Les forces de police coloniales furent connectées au « contrôle général des travailleurs et des tirailleurs indochinois », une force de police politique, alors que la présence militaire était réduite pour allouer davantage de soldats au front intérieur. En métropole, ces organisations de surveillance naissantes furent chargées de contrôler les 100 000 Indochinois français présents pour aider à combattre les Puissances centrales.

À la suite de la victoire communiste lors de la Révolution d'octobre, l'appareil de sécurité de l'Indochine française fut renforcé pour lutter contre le « danger bolchevique » dans les colonies. Bien que la Sûreté générale ait été créée pendant la Première Guerre mondiale, en 1922 elle fut élargie pour devenir un instrument plus performant pour surveiller et réprimer tout élément bolchevique potentiel, d'abord en métropole, puis en Indochine française. Les activités de la Sûreté générale indochinoise étaient gérées par le tout nouveau Département des affaires politiques. La Sûreté générale indochinoise serait utilisée comme l'outil principal pour recueillir des renseignements sur les éléments subversifs au sein de la société indochinoise française et pour effectuer des enregistrements à l'échelle nationale des suspects et des condamnés par les forces de police coloniales.

L'augmentation de la surveillance et de la répression s'accompagna d'une campagne de propagande visant à convaincre les populations indigènes de l'"illumination" du colonialisme français. Il fallait gagner à la cause à la fois la paysannerie indigène et les élites en leur expliquant les « nombreux avantages du colonialisme ». Le Bureau des affaires politiques rassembla un certain nombre d'élites vietnamiennes appartenant à l'intelligentsia indigène grâce à l'École française d'Extrême-Orient pour aider à l'effort de propagande pro-française.

Bien que les Français espéraient isoler les dissidents politiques en les enfermant dans des prisons, ces prisons se transformeraient ironiquement en « écoles » du nationalisme et du communisme, car la concentration d'un grand nombre d'ennemis politiques permettrait à ces derniers de communiquer entre eux, ce qui contribua à la croissance du communisme au sein de l'Indochine française.

### Draft ###

### 1. Query Decomposition

User asks: "contradictions apparentes de l'administration française" + "exploitation économique accrue" vs "répression des mouvements nationalistes" vs "discours officiels et pratiques réelles"

Translation issues: "Collaboration franco-annamite" = Franco-Annamite collaboration/association policy. User frames as research context → academic credibility signal.

Core question: Why official rhetoric ≠ actual governance practices?

### 2. Historical Context Mapping

Timeline: WWI period, Indochina under Albert Sarraut (1914-1919). 

Key factors:
- Imperial war financing needs
- Indochinese manpower mobilization 
- Nationalist awakening from European exposure
- Post-Bolshevik revolutionary threat
- Economic imperatives vs political concessions

Geographic scope: Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos. Administrative levels: metropolitan vs colonial vs local.

### 3. Contradiction Analysis

**Official Discourse** ⟨H≈0.2⟩:
Sarraut's policy = "Franco-Annamite collaboration" rhetoric. Post-WWI promise of political evolution, administrative reforms. Moderate assimilationist approach vs earlier repression.

**Actual Practices** ⟨H≈0.8⟩:
Economic exploitation intensified. More rice exports, taxation, forced recruitment. Prison-school dynamics → nationalist radicalization. Surveillance apparatus expansion.

**Mechanistic Explanation**:
→ War financing demands
→ Labor mobilization quotas  
→ Post-war security paranoia
→ Economic extraction targets

### 4. Systemic Logic

**Paradox Resolution**: 

Why this contradiction persisted?

1. **Structural imperatives**: Colonial extraction economics vs metropolitan needs. Indochina = revenue source, not political partner.

2. **Information asymmetries**: Colonial administrators had limited metropolitan oversight during war. Local security concerns trumped distant political promises.

3. **Feedback loops**: Repression created resistance → justified further repression → validated initial exploitation.

**Verification check**: Does this explain other colonial patterns? ✓ Similar contradictions across British/Dutch empires during same period.

### 5. Synthesis

**Core answer**: Sarraut's "association" policy was ~~genuine~~ → tactical accommodation. War circumstances created temporary flexibility but revealed underlying extraction logic. Post-war Bolshevik threat → security concerns prioritized over political evolution.

**Key insight**: Colonial administration = multiple competing logics. Economic extraction vs political stability vs metropolitan oversight. Temporary flexibility → structural reversion.

**Methodological note**: User's research framing suggests need for archival source triangulation. Official documents vs resistance accounts vs economic data.

∴ **Answer framework**: Systemic explanation of contradictory governance through war financing, security concerns, and economic extraction imperatives. Not simple hypocrisy but structural tension between extraction and accommodation.

### Answer###
Les contradictions que vous observez s'expliquent par les circonstances particulières de la Première Guerre mondiale et les pressions économiques et sécuritaires qui ont caractérisé cette période en Indochine française.

Durant la guerre, le gouverneur général Albert Sarraut promut effectivement une politique de "Collaboration franco-annamite" et de "nouvelle association" pour s'assurer de la contribution des populations indochinoises à l'effort de guerre français. Cependant, cette apparente ouverture politique s'accompagna paradoxalement d'une intensification de l'exploitation économique. L'Indochine française devint entièrement responsable du financement de ses propres opérations militaires et de ses contributions financières à la métropole, ce qui nécessita l'augmentation des taxes et des exportations de riz.

L'envoi d'environ 100 000 Vietnamiens en Europe comme soldats et travailleurs comblait les besoins de main-d'œuvre français, mais cette mobilisation massive révéla rapidement les limites de la politique de collaboration. Les soldats et travailleurs indochinois, exposés aux idées nouvelles et aux conditions de vie plus égalitaires en Europe, développèrent des aspirations à devenir "maîtres de leur propre destin" et s'orientèrent vers le mouvement nationaliste vietnamien.

Cette évolution inquiéta profondément l'administration coloniale. L'expansion du système sécuritaire français s'explique par les craintes de connivence allemande avec les ennemis de l'Extrême-Orient, ainsi que par la peur d'une insurrection généralisée similaire à celle vécue par les Britanniques en Égypte. Le système de surveillance se renforça après la Révolution d'Octobre, le "danger bolchevique" justifiant une répression accrue.

L'appareil policier colonial se concentra sur la surveillance des 100 000 Indochinois en Europe et développa des techniques de contrôle des populations civiles. Paradoxalement, les prisons se transformèrent en écoles du nationalisme et du communisme, car la concentration d'opposants politiques favorisait l'échange d'idées et l'organisation.

Cette situation illustre comment les besoins économiques et sécuritaires primèrent souvent sur les promesses politiques, créant un système où la répression et l'exploitation coexistaient avec des discours d'ouverture et d'association.