What are the facts about the politics in the French involvement in the First Indochina War?

by Mosquitoenail

Having just heard a podcast which paints the Vietnamese at that time as being very much 'the good guys' in the conflict, only turning to the Soviets for help as a last resort after all their diplomatic efforts were ignored or suppressed, I'm interested in other points of view if there are any.

https://play.acast.com/s/the-world-wars/the-french-in-vietnam

gerardmenfin

I've addressed some of these questions for the 1945-1947 period here, here, and a little bit here. However, there would be more to say, notably about the Việt Minh and Vietnamese nationalism in general.