Vietnamese flag on top of paris church 1969 năm 2024

Vietnamese Ambassador to France received three Swiss citizens, Olivier Parriaux, Noé Graff, and Bernard Bachelard (from left to right respectively), participating in hanging the flag of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam on top of Notre Dame Cathedral Paris on January 18 - 19, 1969. Photo: VNA

Vietnamese Ambassador to France Dinh Toan Thang on March 25 has met with the three Swiss nationals who flew the flag of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam on top of Notre Dame Cathedral Paris on January 18 - 19, 1969, to protest the war and advocate peace for the Vietnamese people, VNA reported.

At the gathering in Paris on March 25, Bernard Bachelard, Olivier Parriaux, and Noé Graff from Lausanne city of Switzerland recalled their 30-hour journey to plant the flag on January 18 - 19.

The event took place over 50 years ago, but it was not until 2019 when the cathedral’s spire collapsed in a fire, that the truth about this event was revealed.

They said they started their action on January 18, 1969, when the negotiations on peace for Vietnam began.

At that time, Bernard Bachelard (a 26-year-old physical education teacher), Noé Graff (a 24-year-old law student), and Olivier Parriaux (a 25-year-old physics student) had been strongly engaging in the movements protesting the wars waged by the US and France in Vietnam.

Parriaux noted that as soon as then US President Lyndon Johnson declared to halt bombing in North Vietnam and expressed their readiness for negotiations, the three Swiss realized that the talks in Paris from January 18, 1969, would be a special event leading to the international recognition of the front which had been set up nine years before that.

To celebrate the negotiations in an impressive way, they decided to select a high location, not the Eiffel Tower but a highly humane place respected by the whole world, and that was Notre Dame Cathedral Paris.

Parriaux made the plan, Graff was in charge of driving and guarding, and Bachelard with support from Parriaux was the one climbing to the spire to fly the flag.

This action required thorough preparations since they were not Parisians and didn’t know how to reach the spire, Parriaux recounted, noting that they reached Paris around noon on Saturday, January 18, 1969.

Bachelard and Parriaux hid in the cathedral’s bell tower and waited until the evening when they moved to the spire while Graff was standing guard. They also had to cut some iron bars to prevent firefighters from accessing it and ensure the flag would stay on the spire long enough so that people could see it the next day, on Sunday, January 19.

All their action took place in 30 hours, and before returning home, they dropped by the headquarters of the Le Monde daily to send a communiqué of their action, Parriaux added.

The flag of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam, with a rectangular shape, half red, half blue, and with a yellow star in the center, proudly fluttered against the blue sky, under the eyes of locals and tourists.

It was not until 3 pm on January 19 that the flag of the front was removed by the Paris firefighting team, which had to use a helicopter for the first time to perform a mission then. Journalists, photographers, and videographers had been able to capture that scene from any angle. Finally, Raymond Belle, a firefighter, and stuntman (now deceased) hung himself from a helicopter cable to approach the cross. In extremely difficult conditions and after many failures, this brave firefighter managed to take the flag down.

The flag planting on the spire of Notre Dame Cathedral Paris became a hot topic for international media at that time, Parriaux said, adding they were satisfied with the influence of this event while nobody knew they had made it. The three kept the truth about this event for 50 years.

He went on to say that they decided to reveal the truth by writing a book about it just several days after the cathedral’s spire collapsed in a 2019 fire, 50 years after their action because they were deeply touched by the collapse.

Another reason was that the Quan doi Nhan dan (People’s Army) newspaper of Vietnam wrote in an article that the flag planting 50 years ago was considered one of the important events in the cathedral’s centuries-long history, he said.

"It also proves that the Vietnamese government has recognized that our actions are also important to Vietnam's history, and this makes us very happy. The book also has a great meaning when it is published on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Paris Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam," Parriaux added.

Titled “Le Viet Cong au sommet de Notre-Dame” (The Viet Cong atop Notre Dame), the book was launched by the Lausanne-based FAVRE publishing company in January 2023 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Paris Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam (January 27, 1973).

Expressing his gratitude towards the Swiss nationals, Ambassador Thang described their flag planting as a demonstration of peace-loving people’s support for Vietnam, noting amid the resistance war against the US, the international community’s support played a significant role in helping the Vietnamese people secure the 1973 Paris Peace Accords and move towards the national reunification in 1975.

The ambassador also emphasized that welcoming the three Swiss citizens this time not only "recalls that period of the nation's history, but it is also an opportunity to express our gratitude to you, as well as to the entire movement to support the Vietnamese people during the heroic years of the Vietnamese people's resistance war against the US, the struggle for national independence and national reunification".

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What was the flag of Vietnam in 1969?

On 8 June 1969, the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (Viet Cong) adopted a tricolor flag modelled from that of North Vietnam, which is the red half at the top, the blue half at the bottom, and a yellow star in the center.

Why are there two Vietnamese flags?

With the defeat of American and South Vietnamese forces in 1975, communists ruled the entire country. Their 1945 flag flew in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the north; in the south the Republic of Vietnam (led militarily by the Viet Cong) had a similar flag.

What was the flag of Vietnam in the 1970s?

Description: The South Vietnam flag was used between 1948 and 1975. The flag has a yellow field with three horizontal red stripes in the center. For outdoor (or indoor) display, this flag is made from 100% heavyweight nylon fabric specially treated to minimize sun and chemical deterioration.

What does the Viet Cong flag mean?

The flag was reportedly taken in 1968 from an interdicted Vietnamese junk boat searched near the Mekong Delta. The flag's half-red, half-blue field is believed to be a variation on the flag of Communist North Vietnam. The blue bottom half of a Vietcong flag represented the North's control over the capitalist south.