On 24 March 1945, hardly two weeks after the Japanese overthrew the French in Indochina, the Provisional Government of the French Republic led by Charles de Gaulle issued its first major public statement on its policy towards Indochina in particular and towards the rest of the Empire in general. In effect, the declaration on Indochina mentioned officially for the first time the term “French Union” and served to outline in broad terms the nature of the French Union which would replace the “Empire”. Based on the federal ideas developed during the Brazzaville Conference, and in particular the thinking of Henri Laurentie and Léon Pignon, the declaration of March 1945 called for the creation of a pentagonal Indochinese Federation regrouping Tonkin, Annam, Cochinchina, Laos, and Cambodia. Although the federal structure was designed to give each state a greater level of autonomy, ultimate sovereignty resided with the French, who would rule through a high commissioner (the new name for the governor general). The Indochinese Federation would in turn be linked to the other French colonial states via its membership in the French Union. The problem was that the text had already been overtaken by events in Asia: the Japanese overthrow of the French in colonial Indochina on 9 March and Bao Dai’s declaration of Vietnam’s independence shortly thereafter. The Indochina declaration made no mention of the independence or the unification of Vietnam, much to the dissatisfaction of Vietnamese nationalists of many political colors. See also ACCORDS OF 6 MARCH 1946; COUP DE FORCE OF 9 MARCH 1945; DALAT CONFERENCE, FIRST, DALAT CONFERENCE, SECOND