President Truong Tan Sang on September 25 conferred the Ho Chi Minh Order to Raymond Aubrac, a French resistance leader during the Second World War, for his support for Vietnam during the past wars.

The Order, Vietnam ’s second highest distinction, was received by Aubrac’s daughter Elizabeth in Hanoi .

In his talk to Elizabeth , Sang recounted activities that her father participated in during his revolutionary life. Aubrac and his wife Lucie helped set up Liberation South in 1940, one of the first networks of the Resistance against the Nazi occupation of France .

In 1946, Aubrac met President Ho Chi Minh when the Vietnamese revolutionary leader came to France for peace negotiations at Fontainebleau and stayed in Aubrac’s house.

During the Vietnam War, Aubrac served as an intermediary between Ho Chi Minh and Western leaders such as US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and joined a group of intellectuals and scientists working to end the war.

In the post-war time, when working for FAO, Aubrac persuaded the US to supply Vietnam with records and maps on the planting of bombs and mines along McNamara’s electrified fence at the 17 th parallel (Ben Hai river) dividing North and South Vietnam during the war to help with clearance work.

Aubrac died on April 10, 2012 at the age of 97.-VNA