Photos showing the Swiss nationals' process to reach the spire of Notre Dame Cathedral Paris on January 18 - 19, 1969, to plant the flag of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam. (Source: VNA) At the gathering in Paris on March 25, Bernard Bachelard,Olivier Parriaux, and Noé Graff from Lausanne city of Switzerland recalled their30-hour journey to plant the flag on January 18 - 19. The event took place over50 years ago, but it was not until 2019 when the cathedral’s spire collapsedin a fire, that the truth about this event was revealed.
They said they started their action on January 18, 1969, whenthe negotiations on peace for Vietnam began.
At that time, Bernard Bachelard (a 26-year-old physicaleducation teacher), Noé Graff (a 24-year-old law student), and Olivier Parriaux(a 25-year-old physics student) had been strongly engaging in the movements protestingthe wars waged by the US and France in Vietnam.
Parriaux noted that as soon as then US President Lyndon Johnsondeclared to halt bombing in North Vietnam and expressed the readiness fornegotiations, the three Swiss realised that the talks in Paris from January 18,1969, would be a special event leading to the international recognition of the front which had been set up nine yearsbefore that.
To celebrate the negotiations in an impressive way, theydecided to select a high location, not the Eiffel Tower but a highly humaneplace respected by the whole world, and that was Notre Dame Cathedral Paris.
Vietnamese Ambassador to France Dinh Toan Thang (second from right) meets with the three Swiss nationals - Bernard Bachelard (first, left), Noé Graff (second, left) and Olivier Parriaux on March 25. (Photo: VNA) This action required thorough preparations since they werenot Parisians and didn’t know how to reach the spire, Parriaux recounted,noting that they reached Paris around the noon of Saturday January 18, 1969.
Bachelard and Parriaux hid themselves in the cathedral’s belltower and waited to the evening when they moved to the spire while Graffwas standing guard. They also had to cut some iron bars to prevent firefightersfrom accessing and ensure the flag would stay on the spire long enough so thatpeople could see it the next day, on Sunday January 19.
All their action took place in 30 hours, and before returninghome, they dropped by the headquarters of the Le Monde daily to send a communiquéof their action, Parriaux added.
It was not until 3pm on January 19 that the flag of the front was removed by the Parisfirefighting team, which had to use a helicopter for the first time to performa mission then.
The flag planting on the spire of Notre Dame Cathedral Parisbecame a hot topic for international media at that time, Parriaux said, adding theywere satisfied with the influence of this event while nobody knew they had madeit. The three kept the truth about this event for 50 years.
He went on to say that they decided to reveal the truth bywriting a book about it just several days after the cathedral’s spire collapsedin a 2019 fire, 50 years after their action, because they were deeply touchedby the collapse.
Another reason was that the Quan doi Nhan dan (People’s Army)newspaper of Vietnam wrote in an article that the flag planting 50 years agowas considered one of the important events in the cathedral’s centuries-longhistory, he added.
Titled “Le Viet Cong au sommet de Notre-Dame” (The Viet Congatop Notre Dame), the book was launched by the Lausanne-based FAVRE publishingcompany in January 2023 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of thesigning of the Paris Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam(January 27, 1973).
Expressing his gratitude towards the Swiss nationals, AmbassadorThang described their flag planting as a demonstration of peace-loving people’ssupport for Vietnam, noting amid the resistance war against the US, theinternational community’s support played a significant role in helping theVietnamese people secure the 1973 Paris Peace Accords and move towards thenational reunification in 1975./.
VNA
