French Administration and Nationalism in Indo-China

Abstract

The fashioning of what has been appropriately described as ‘the neat hierarchy of French colonial administration modelled on the Napoleonic pattern’1 was largely the work of Paul Doumer, who held the office of governor-general from 1897 to 1902. He unified the corps of civilian services, reconstituted the administration of Tong-king, and organized the government of the newly-acquired Laos territories. In Tongking he wiped out the last vestiges of autonomy by abolishing the offices of viceroy, Tong-doc and Tuan-phu, and transforming what was theoretically a protectorate into what became for all practical purposes a directly administered colony. The Laos territories became an ‘autonomous protectorate’ under a résident supérieur responsible to the governor-general. From Doumer’s regime, writes Georges Lamarre,2 dates l’Indochine actuelle.