The Ho–Sainteny agreement, officially the ''Accord Between France and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam'', known in Vietnamese as Hiệp định sơ bộ Pháp-Việt, was an agreement made on March 6, 1946, between

Ho Chi Minh (: ; born ; 19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), commonly known as (' Uncle Hồ'), also known as ('President Hồ'), (' Old father of the people') and by other aliases, was a Vietnamese revolutionary and statesman. He served as P ...

, President of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and

Jean Sainteny Jean Sainteny or Jean Roger (29 May 1907, in Vésinet – 25 February 1978) was a French politician who was sent to Vietnam after the end of the Second World War in order to accept the surrender of the Japanese forces and to attempt to re-annex V ...

, Special Envoy of

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

. It recognized Vietnam as a " Free State" within the

French Union The French Union () was a political entity created by the French Fourth Republic to replace the old French colonial empire system, colloquially known as the " French Empire" (). It was the formal end of the "indigenous" () status of French subj ...

, and permitted France to continue stationing troops in

North Vietnam North Vietnam, officially the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV; vi, Việt Nam Dân chủ Cộng hòa), was a socialist state supported by the Soviet Union (USSR) and the People's Republic of China (PRC) in Southeast Asia that existed f ...

.Howard Zinn, ed., “Accord Between France and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam on 6 March 1946,” in ''The Pentagon Papers'', by Mike Gravel, Gravel, vol. 1 (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1971), 18–19
www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon/int2.htm

References

First Indochina War 1946 in Vietnam Treaties concluded in 1946 Treaties of the Provisional Government of the French Republic Treaties of North Vietnam France–Vietnam relations {{Vietnam-stub