Andre Menras, a retired French teacher, is honored to be the first foreign man granted Vietnamese nationality in November 2009, with a Vietnamese name Ho Cuong Quyet.
President Nguyen Minh Triet and Andre Menras.
July 25 1970 was a landmark in Andre Menras’ life. Menras and his friend Jean Pierre Debris went to Saigon in 1970 under the “French Red Youth International Cooperation Mission.” He climbed the statue of a US marine in Saigon in front of the Lower House of the Saigon government (HCM City Opera House at present) to wave the flag of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF), and distributed 6000 leaflets against the Vietnam War.
Menras and his friend were arrested for these activities. He was sentenced to three years in prison, while his comrade was sentenced to four.
Waves of demonstrations against their imprisonment ensued, but the Saigon government did not budge an inch and the duo served their full sentences. Although hard and brutal, the years in prison did not pass by fruitlessly for the young man, a former French teacher at Saigon’s Jean Jacque Rousseau School. He learned Vietnamese from other prisoners and they gave him a Vietnamese name, Ho Cuong Quyet (Ho standing for Ho Chi Minh and Cuong Quyet meaning determination).
In early 1973, they were released and expelled to France. Several months after, he published the book We Accuse: Back from Saigon’s Prisons in France. This book has been translated into many languages, including a Vietnamese version issued in 1974.
Almost 30 years since his hurried exit, Menras returned to Saigon in 2002 to see his friends. Since then, he has frequently shuttled between France and Vietnam, serving as chair for the French-Vietnamese Association of Education Development and Exchange.
Menras explained that, since he hails from the Beziers region in southern France that is world-renowned for its champagne, he has also teamed up with Saigontourist to open several champagne outlets. All profits are used to help poor children in Vietnam.
To honor his contributions to Vietnam, he was presented with the “For the Young Generation” medal and the “Medal for Peace and Friendship between Nations” by the Vietnamese government.
In a talk with HCM City Vice-Chair three years ago, Menras expressed his wish to become a Vietnamese citizen while keeping his French nationality. At that time, Vietnam had not approved dual nationality yet and foreigners had to give up their original nationality to gain Vietnamese citizenship.
The new Law on Nationality was ratified in July 2009 and took effect as of November 2009. President Nguyen Minh Triet knew of Menras through some of his comrades and invited Menras to meet on November 4, 2009. At that time the President promised to grant Menras Vietnamese citizenship.
Several days later, Menras saw the Vietnamese President again in a meeting with his comrades in a forest near the Vietnam-Cambodia border, the war resistance base during the Vietnam War. The President told Menras to go to the HCM City Department of Justice three days later to receive his grant of Vietnamese nationality.
On December 1, 2009, Menras received the decision at a solemn ceremony, attended by President Nguyen Minh Triet. From that day, Menras was a Vietnamese citizen named Ho Cuong Quyet. He is the first foreigner to receive Vietnamese nationality under the new law.
A reporter of the L’Herault du Jour newspaper questioned Menras: “If you attend a sports game between Vietnam and France, what team does your heart beat for?”
Menras answered: “In cases when I have to make difficult choices, people often ask me: Hey Andre, are you French or Vietnamese? Like the song of Josephine Baker, I have two loves. In prison, when I heard stories of Frenchmen like Henri Martin, Madeleine Riffaud or Raymonde Dien, who fought colonialism, I really felt I’m French. When I fought against the prison wall of French colonialism, I felt I’m Vietnamese.”
He continued: “My first roots in terms of biology are western, but my Vietnamese roots grew up from revolution and struggling. These roots are very important because it is my youth. So please don’t ask me to choose that which cannot be separated. If there is a sports game, I don’t have to choose because Vietnamese people don’t play rugby!”