Historical Figures

Raymonde Dien, against the war in Indochina

French communist activist, Raymonde Dien (born in 1929) peacefully opposed the Indochina war in 1950, an action for which she was imprisoned.

The Indochina War

Raymonde Dien was born as Raymonde Huberdeau on May 13, 1929 in Mansigné, Sarthe, France. A communist activist, she was 17 when the Indochina War broke out, a conflict for independence in French Indochina. France is opposed to the Việt Minh, a Vietnamese independence movement that claims communism. With the support of China, communist from 1949, the war of decolonization took an even more political turn by anchoring itself in the international context of the Cold War.

The French Communist Party is resolutely committed against the war in Indochina, in particular from the end of 1949. Large-scale actions are carried out, like the dockers' strike, blocking the shipments of military equipment to Marseilles then in other French ports from November 1949 to May 1950, while L'Humanité publishes anti-war articles almost daily.

February 23, 1950

In February 1950, the PCF learned that a train carrying war material leaving for Indochina had to pass through the Saint-Pierre des Corps station in Indre-et-Loire. On February 23, hundreds of peaceful demonstrators gather in the station to protest. To prevent the passage of the train, Raymonde Dien and another activist, René Jannelle, federal secretary of the PCF, lie down on the tracks. Raymonfe was then twenty years old.

At the end of the demonstration, the soldiers present in the railway convoy describe to the police the presence of a woman in trousers. When the police go to the premises of the PCF, they find Raymonde there alone and arrest her. Identified by the same witnesses who had described her, she was accused of "complicity in the deterioration of material likely to be used for national defense" and imprisoned in Tours. She will be the only protester prosecuted.

The following March 18, Humanity writes:“She is twenty years old, a sweet long face, a clear smile. On Wednesday, February 23, the door of Tours prison closed behind her. What did she do, Raymonde Dien, to be thus thrown among the convicts of common law? She lay down on the rails, in front of a train loaded with tanks which, after checking, were to be sent to Vietnam. It was at Saint-Pierre-des-Corps station, and hundreds of peace supporters were at his side…”

A figure of resistance

The trial takes place the following June. Defended by lawyer Marie-Louise Jacquier-Cachin, Raymonde Dien was sentenced to one year in prison and fifteen years forfeiture of her civic rights.

Having become a figure of the resistance against the war in Indochina, Raymonde benefited from a vast campaign of support from the PCF, but also from support beyond the borders. Demonstrations are organized, militants and especially militants by the thousands write to the public prosecutors of Tours and Orléans to demand his release and L'Humanité publishes articles in his favour.

Raymonde was finally released a little before the end of her sentence, at Christmas 1950. A slightly early release that she attributed to popular mobilization. Thereafter, she continued to be an activist and, from 1953 to 1958, was one of the leaders of the Union des jeunes filles de France, a women's youth movement of the PCF.

In memory of her gesture, Raymonde Dien received the Vietnam Friendship Medal in 2004. A statue representing her lying on rails is also erected in Victory Park in Saint Petersburg.