Mr. Jean-Marie Jacquemin with the newspaper L'Humanité on May 8, 1954. Photo: Thu Ha/VNA

According to VNA reporters, these days, when visiting the Vietnam Press History Museum in Hanoi, visitors will see 70-year-old French newspapers on display. They are not just ordinary old newspapers, they are the first newspapers to publish news of France's defeat at the Dien Bien Phu campaign. And 70 years later , the person who kept them donated them to the Vietnam Press Museum.

“ Dien Bien Phu has fallen”, “Ceasefire in Indochina”, “Controversy around the Geneva conference round table”… these were the prominent headlines on the front page of L'Humanité on May 8, 1954 and France-Soir on May 9-10, 1954.

Just one day after the Dien Bien Phu victory on May 7, 1954, 10,000 km away, French newspapers simultaneously published the news that the French Expeditionary Force had lost the Dien Bien Phu battlefield. Seventy years have passed since then, and few people still keep the pages of newspapers reporting this humiliating defeat of the French army, unless it is a documentary center. However, with his hobby of collecting books, stamps and postcards, and his special affection for Vietnam, Mr. Jean-Marie Jacquemin has kept some of these historically significant newspapers to this day.

Sitting and reading the big headlines on the front pages of old newspapers about Dien Bien Phu, Mr. Jean-Marie Jacquemin enthusiastically told the origin of the newspapers that his father kept and then passed on to him, along with his passion for collecting information about major events. He said that due to the influence of his father's hobby of collecting newspapers, he kept many articles about world events, including the Indochina War and the defeat of the French Expeditionary Force in Vietnam. But due to lack of space, he had to filter them down, keeping only the newspapers about important events. "I never thought I would have the opportunity to mention them. So when I looked back at the articles publishing events about the Indochina War, about the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu, or about peace in Vietnam... I thought you would be very interested in these documents, so I wanted to give them to you," he shared with a reporter from the Vietnam News Agency in France.

France-soir newspaper, May 9-10, 1954 issue. Photo: Thu Ha/VNA

Collecting stamps, postcards, and newspapers has been his "father-to-son" hobby since he was a child. During his working years, his job as a technician at Le Monde Printing House gave him even more access to information and newspapers. Now, at the age of nearly 90, Mr. Jacquemin still keeps many articles about other national and international events.

He said he loves collecting newspapers because it is also a part of his heritage and is useful for young people, or those who want to look up and refer to, to know what happened in history. "The world is developing so fast now! The Internet and television are completely replacing newspapers. Older generations like us find it regrettable, because with television, everything happens so quickly, sometimes we can't remember everything. And then people also read less newspapers every day, so memories don't retain anything," he complained, regret shining in his eyes.

Mr. Jean-Marie Jacquemin presented Ms. Tran Kim Hoa, Director of the Vietnam Press Museum, with a book of press collections about Vietnam titled "1968-1973 Verrières-le-Buisson: Ben bo Binh an". Photo: Ngoc Hiep/VNA

Talking about Vietnam, the man's kind face, marked by the wrinkles of time, became happier. Mr. Jean-Marie Jacquemin expressed his admiration for a small country that was able to wage resistance wars and defeat great powers such as France and the United States. He also appreciated the fact that France and Vietnam had put the past behind them to move towards the future together, having a good relationship for the past 50 years. He shared: "It is good that the two countries have been friendly with each other. During the war, not only the Indochinese people, but also the families of French veterans suffered when they lost their loved ones. But all wars will end with peace treaties with humane agreements. In the future, we should further promote the relationship between France and Vietnam through cultural and tourism development so that the two countries can understand each other better. I think that is necessary."

Previously, with special affection for Vietnam, Mr. Jean-Marie Jacquemin donated to the Vietnam Press Museum a number of valuable books and newspapers related to Vietnam and the book "1968-1973 Verrières-le-Buisson: Ben bo binh an" compiled by him.

The book is a collection of hundreds of French and international articles written about the war in Vietnam and the negotiation process of the 1973 Paris Agreement, considered one of the longest negotiation processes of the 20th century, as well as the presence of the delegation of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam at house number 49, now number 17 Cambacérès street, in the city of Verrières-le-Buisson, during the negotiation and signing of the Paris Agreement from 1968 to 1973. The articles were collected by Mr. Jacquemin over many years and published in book form for the first time in 2013 on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Paris Agreement, then republished with additions in 2023, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of this event.

Ms. Tran Kim Hoa, Director of the Vietnam Press Museum, presented a document donation certificate to Mr. Jean-Marie Jacquemin in France. Photo: Ngoc Hiep/VNA

Looking back at the journey of French newspapers to Vietnam, Ms. Tran Kim Hoa, Director of the Vietnam Press Museum, highly appreciated the significance of the presence of valuable documentary newspapers published in France from the 50s to the 70s of the last century at the Vietnam Press Museum. "This has always been the burning desire of museum workers, to serve journalist colleagues and the visiting public, especially in the context of the two countries commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Dien Bien Phu campaign," Ms. Kim Hoa affirmed.

In late 2023 and early 2024, thanks to the successful connection of the Vietnam News Agency Resident Office in Paris, French private collector Jean-Marie Jacquemin not only learned about the Press Museum but also gave the Vietnamese public the opportunity to enjoy in Vietnam some world press heritages and some original French press artifacts, especially issues related to Dien Bien Phu, contributing to widely introducing the interest of the French people and the French press, 70 years ago, in the story of Vietnam and the Dien Bien Phu battle, which they called a "tragedy" and "collapse".

Not only that, Mr. Jean-Marie Jacquemin also presented the Museum with French newspapers reporting on the Geneva Armistice Agreement to restore peace in Indochina, or newspapers reporting on the first bombing of the Gulf of Tonkin by the US Air Force in 1964, the Paris Peace Agreement signed in 1973, and issues related to the Vietnam War after 1954...

Ms. Tran Kim Hoa highly appreciated the affection that Mr. Jean-Marie Jacquemin had for Vietnam in general and for the Press Museum in particular, through the transfer and donation of those valuable original press artifacts. She also did not forget to mention the Paris-based journalists of the News Agency who have devotedly and promptly supported the exploitation of valuable press documents and artifacts for the research of Vietnamese history in general, and the history of Vietnamese journalism in particular.

According to baotintuc.vn