The creation of the SFIO in 1905 marked the unification of French socialist groups and tendencies into one party. While the SFIO was initially critical of colonial excesses, the socialists were reformers, not decolonizers or even anti-colonialists. Local chapters of the SFIO emerged throughout the Empire during the first half of the 20th century. In 1937, French socialist Louis Caput created the SFIO’s first Indochinese branch in Hanoi and strongly advocated the opening of its doors to the Vietnamese. Indeed, he was instrumental in admitting Hoang Minh Giam – future minister in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) – to the SFIO in Hanoi. During the Vichy period and the Japanese occupation during World War II, the SFIO’s political activities were pushed underground, where a number of socialists, such as Caput, joined the internal resistance and began to think in anti-colonial terms.
The SFIO emerged from World War II in France in a fairly strong position. However, unable to win a majority vote in the legislative elections of 1945, the party had to join a coalition government with the French Communist Party and the Mouvement républicain populaire. This “tripartisme” marked French politics between 1945 and 1947, the period during which the war in Indochina broke out. Caput came down in favor of Vietnamese independence, but ranking socialists were divided over the Vietnam problem and had no clear-cut policy on decolonization. The conservative wing of the party, led by Marius Moutet, minister of the Colonies, found it hard to imagine an independent Vietnam. Colonial reform, certainly, but decolonization, no. More liberal thinkers such as Caput and Paul Rivet argued in favour of respecting the reality of colonial nationalism and decolonization. The problem was that despite the SFIO’s hostility to High Commissioner Georges Thierry d’Argenlieu’s aggressive policy towards the DRV in Indochina, French national politics were such that the leadership did not want to endanger its political interests in France by taking too risky a stand on the Indochina problem, preferring instead to turn a blind eye to Thierry d’Argenlieu’s actions. While the SFIO, once it was in the opposition, would become critical of the Indochina War and push for a negotiated solution, it was unable to prevent war from breaking out on 19 December 1946. See also ALAIN SAVARY.