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State President: VN is grateful to close int’l friends

VGP – The Party, State and people of Việt Nam are always grateful to such close friends as Mr. Andre Menras, a French citizen who has stood side by side with Vietnamese people since their resistance war.

November 05, 2009 6:00 PM GMT+7

State President Nguyễn Minh Triết (R) and Mr. Andre Menras, Hà Nội, November 5, 2009 - Photo: VNA
Hosting a reception given to Mr. Andre Menras on Thursday, State President Nguyễn Minh Triết stressed that the Party, State and people of Việt Nam are always grateful to such close friends as Mr. Menras, who fought side by side with the Vietnamese people in the resistance war and has greatly assisted Việt Nam’s national construction and development.

As Chairman of the France-Việt Nam Development Friendship Society, Mr. Menras has helped many universities in Đà Nẵng, Nha Trang and Hồ Chí Minh City to exchange their teachers and share experience with training institutes in France.

In 2004, Mr. Andre Menras started to grant scholarships to poor Vietnamese students and became the trade agent for 800 wine-makers in Languedoc Loussillon, Southern France, to raise fund for his scholarships.

He is now applying for Vietnamese nationality.

On July 25, 1970, Mr. Andre Menras, working as a primary teacher in Sài Gòn (now Hồ Chí Minh City), and one of his friends publicly protested the Việt Nam War right in front of the Lower House of the Sài Gòn regime.

He was imprisoned for 2 years and a half by the pro-American Sài Gòn regime before being expelled.

While being kept in prison, Mr. Andre Menras tried to learn Vietnamese to better understand the struggle for national salvation of Vietnamese people.

Back to France, he wrote the book “We Accuse: Back from Sài Gòn’s Prisons,” published in France in May 1973.

By Xuân Hoàng