WAlphonse Amadou Alley was a Beninese army officer and political figure. He was most active when his country was known as Dahomey. He was born in Bassila, central Dahomey, and enrolled in schools in Togo, Cote d'Ivoire, and Senegal before enlisting in the French army in 1950. He saw combat in Indochina from 1950 to 1953, in Morocco from 1955 to 1956, and in Algeria from 1959 to 1961. After the coup in 1965, President Christophe Soglo promoted Alley Chief of Staff of the Army. Young army officer Maurice Kouandété was appointed Alley's chef de cabinet in 1967.
WPaul Marie Félix Jacques René Arnaud de Foïard was a général of the French Army who served primarily in the French Foreign Legion taking part in World War II and the conflicts of Indochina and Algeria.
WPaul Aussaresses was a French Army general, who fought during World War II, the First Indochina War and Algerian War. His actions during the Algerian War—and later defense of those actions—caused considerable controversy.
WAndré Beaufre was a French Army officer and military strategist who attained the rank of Général d'Armée before his retirement in 1961.
WChadli Bendjedid was the third President of Algeria; his presidential term of office ran from 9 February 1979 to 11 January 1992.
WMarcel "Bruno" Bigeard was a French military officer who fought in World War II, Indochina and Algeria. He was one of the commanders in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu and is thought by many to have been a dominating influence on French 'unconventional' warfare thinking from that time onwards. He was one of the most decorated soldiers in France, and is particularly noteworthy because of his rise from being a regular soldier in 1936 to ultimately finishing his career in 1976 as a Lieutenant General. A former member of the French Resistance, he is associated mainly with the wars in Indochina and Algeria.
WJean-Bédel Bokassa, also known as Bokassa I, was a Central African political and military leader who served as the second president of the Central African Republic and as the emperor of its successor state, the Central African Empire, from his Saint-Sylvestre coup d'état on 1 January 1966 until overthrown in a subsequent coup in 1979.
WÉmile Bollaert was French High Commissioner of Indochina from 5 March 1947 to 19 October 1948.
WJacques Pâris de Bollardière was a French Army general, famous for his non-violent positions during the 1960s.
WPierre-Louis Le Bris, known as Pierre Brice, was a French actor, best known as portraying fictional Apache-chief Winnetou in German films based on Karl May novels.
WMarcel Maurice Carpentier was a French Army general who served in World War I, World War II and First Indochina War.
WChristian Marie Ferdinand de la Croix de Castries was the French commander at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954.
WAlain Fabien Maurice Marcel Delon is a French actor and businessman. He is known as one of Europe's most prominent actors and screen sex symbols from the 1960s. He achieved critical acclaim for roles in films such as Rocco and His Brothers (1960), Plein Soleil (1960), L'Eclisse (1962), The Leopard (1963), The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1965), Lost Command (1966) and Le Samouraï (1967). Over the course of his career Delon worked with many well-known directors, including Luchino Visconti, Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Melville, Michelangelo Antonioni and Louis Malle. He acquired Swiss citizenship in 1999.
WRobert Denard was a French soldier of fortune and mercenary. Sometimes known under the aliases Gilbert Bourgeaud and Saïd Mustapha Mhadjou, he was known for having performed various jobs in support of Françafrique—France's sphere of influence in its former colonies in Africa—for Jacques Foccart, co-ordinator of President Charles de Gaulle's African policy.
WColonel Marcel Edme was a French military officer, paratrooper, and Legion of Honour recipient who served as France's most senior military adviser to the Togolese Armed Forces until his death in a helicopter crash in 1979. Born in Madagascar in 1924, Edme served in World War II as a member of the 2nd Parachute Chasseur Regiment, parachuting into occupied France twice, and later took part in the fighting in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954 with the 1st Colonial Parachute Battalion where he was taken prisoner. He went on to fight in Algeria.
WGnassingbé Eyadéma was the President of Togo from 1967 until his death in 2005. He participated in two successful military coups, in January 1963 and January 1967, and became President on 14 April 1967.
WGeneviève de Galard is a French nurse who was dubbed l'ange de Dien Bien Phu during the French war in Indochina by the press in Hanoi, although in the camp she was known simply as Geneviève.
WAdrien Goybet (1922–1995) was the son of Admiral Pierre Goybet and grandson of General Mariano Goybet. He served as chef de bataillon in the Fusiliers Marins. He trained with British Force 136, the Southeast Asian branch of the Special Operations Executive, the British military espionage and covert action force.
WRoger Holeindre was a French Army veteran, politician and author. He served in the First Indochina War and the Algerian War, was a member of the National Assembly from 1986 to 1988. Holeindre also served as the vice-president of the National Front (FN) where he represented the "national-conservative" tendency, opposed to "nationalist revolutionaries" and Third Position ideologies. Holeindre was the president of the Cercle national des combattants and the honorary president of the Party of France.
WEdmond Jouhaud was one of four French generals who briefly staged a putsch in Algeria in April 1961.
WJean Joseph Marie Gabriel de Lattre de Tassigny was a French army general during World War II and the First Indochina War. He was posthumously elevated to the dignity of Marshal of France.
WJean-Marie Le Pen is a French politician who served as President of the National Front from 1972 to 2011. He also served as Honorary President of the National Front from 2011 to 2015.
WJacques Émile Massu was a French general who fought in World War II, the First Indochina War, the Algerian War and the Suez crisis. He led French troops in the Battle of Algiers, first supporting and later denouncing their use of torture.
WHenri Eugène Navarre was a French Army general. He fought during World War I, World War II and was the seventh and final commander of French Far East Expeditionary Corps during the First Indochina War. Navarre was in overall command during the decisive French defeat at the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ.
WJacques Peyrat is a French politician and lawyer who was mayor of Nice from 1995 to 2008 and has been senator from the Alpes-Maritimes from 1998 to 2008.
WPaul Rivière was a French Resistance fighter and politician. He joined the Resistance from 1941, took part in the Indochina and Algeria Wars.
WRaoul Albin Louis Salan was a French Army general. He served as the fourth French commanding general during the First Indochina War. He was one of four generals who organized the 1961 Algiers Putsch operation. He was the founder of the Organisation armée secrète and the most decorated soldier in the French Army at the end of his military career.
WAndré Salvat was a colonel in the French Army. He was a veteran of World War II, the First Indochina War and the Algerian War. He was made a Companion of the Liberation for his World War II service.
WJean Sassi was a French Army colonel and intelligence service officer, former "Jedburgh" (BCRA) of France and Far East. Commando chief of the SDECE's 11th Shock Parachutist Regiment. Maquis chief in French Indochina through the GCMA (1953–1955).
WPierre Schoendoerffer was a French film director, a screenwriter, a writer, a war reporter, a war cameraman, a renowned First Indochina War veteran, a cinema academician. He was president of the Académie des Beaux-Arts for 2001 and for 2007.
WPeter Roman Scholl-Latour was a German journalist and author.
WGeorges Thierry d'Argenlieu, in religion Father Louis of the Trinity, O.C.D., was a Discalced Carmelite friar and priest, who was also a diplomat and French Navy officer and admiral; he became one of the major personalities of the Forces navales françaises libres. He was the chancellor of the Ordre de la Libération.
WSusan Mary Gillian Travers was an Englishwoman who served in the French Red Cross as a nurse and ambulance driver during the Second World War. She later became the only woman to be matriculated in the French Foreign Legion, having also served in French Indochina, during the First Indochina War.
WJean Etienne Valluy was a French general.