France Awards National Order to Former Vietnamese Ambassador
French Ambassador to Vietnam Jean-Noel Poirier presented the National Order of the Legion of Honour of Grand Officer Class, the highest class, to Mr Vo Van Sung, the first Ambassador of unified Vietnam to France, at a ceremony on July 11, 2015 in Hanoi.
Mr Sung, who was also an assistant to the Foreign Minister of Vietnam, was one of the main architects who helped forge and develop Vietnam-France diplomatic relations in the past 50 years.
Particularly, Mr Sung also contributed to the reunification of Vietnam. He proposed the French capital of Paris as the location for peace talks with the United States. And, he himself was one of five official members of the Vietnam delegation to place official signatures on the Paris Peace Accords of 1973. Shortly after the war, the seasoned diplomat resumed his political career in France and became the first ambassador of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam to France in 1974 and was appointed the Ambassador of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1976 after national reunification. Upon returning to Vietnam, he served as an assistant to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the chairman of the Vietnam-France Friendship Association until his retirement in 1993.
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