Leading non-communist politician and military officer in the Provisional Government of the Republic of Cochinchina. Born in Gia Dinh province, he studied in France and was the first Vietnamese to enter the École polytechnique. He fought on the Western Front during World War I and received the French Croix de guerre with palms for bravery. General Philippe Pétain personally cited him for the bravery he demonstrated during the battle of Verdun. Nguyen Van Xuan obtained French citizenship and married a French woman. He apparently remained in the French army, serving in Indochina during the interwar period. In 1939, he was vice director of artillery for Cochinchina and Cambodia. Later in that year, he also worked in Paris in the Ministry of the colonies’ military division in charge of equipping the French Empire for defense. He then returned to Indochina.
When the Japanese overthrew the French in the coup de force of 9 March 1945, he refused to collaborate and joined his wife who had been incarcerated in the Citadel in Hanoi by the Japanese. When the French returned to southern Vietnam, he returned to Saigon to serve as vice president of the Cochinchinese Council. He held the rank of colonel in the French army. In July–August 1946, he served as president of the delegation of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Cochinchina to the second Dalat Conference. Between June and December 1946, he was minister of Defense and vice president of the Provisional Government. By 1947, he held the rank of general in the French army. He took over from Le Van Hoach as the president of the Cochinchinese Republic in October 1947, assuming simultaneously the portfolios of Defense and the Interior. In April 1948, he returned to the premiership and served simultaneously as minister of Defense and the Interior. He was instrumental in efforts to bring Bao Dai back to lead a non-communist Vietnamese state against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV). On 20 May 1948, he became president of the provisional government of South Vietnam. A month later, a DRV military court sentenced him to death in absentia for treason. In May 1949, Nguyen Van Xuan attained the rank of general of division, although it is unclear whether it was in the French army or that of the emerging Associated State of Vietnam. His government resigned in June 1949 upon the return of Bao Dai to Vietnam. In July 1949, he assumed the post of vice president and minister of Defense in Bao Dai’s new government. He later moved to France where he apparently died in 1989. See also ASSOCIATED STATES OF INDOCHINA; BAO DAI SOLUTION.