Mémorial des guerres en Indochine de Fréjus, National necropolis and war memorial in Fréjus, France.
The Mémorial des guerres en Indochine de Fréjus is a memorial and national necropolis in Fréjus, Var. Its circular promenade, 110 metres in diameter, is built of concrete on stilts. A 64-metre wall of remembrance crosses the main building, with 438 plaques around a bronze map of Indochina. The necropolis lies on two levels at the foot of the circle.
The Franco-Vietnamese agreements of 2 August 1986 provided for the repatriation of 27,000 bodies from cemeteries at Saigon, Vũng Tàu and Ba Huyen near Hanoi; the first 833 arrived in October 1986. Fréjus offered the former Gallieni military camp, where Indochinese riflemen had stayed during World War I and a first monument stood since 1983. The memorial was inaugurated on 16 February 1993 by President François Mitterrand.
The worship space, inaugurated in 1996, hosts ceremonies for four religions: Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism. The memorial adjoins the Pagode Hông Hiên Tu, a Buddhist pagoda, so the site combines a military necropolis with an active place of worship. The national day of homage to the dead for France in Indochina is held on 8 June, established by decree in 2005.
The site lies in the Gallieni sector of Fréjus, reached from the town centre by road; the memorial, remembrance wall and two-level necropolis are linked by a circular concrete promenade 110 m in diameter. The necropolis steps down in two levels, the lower one for the dead from South Vietnam and the upper for those from North Vietnam, so allow time for the slopes. A small museum on French Indochina is on site.
The remembrance wall is 64 metres long and carries 34,935 names on 438 plaques, set on either side of a bronze map of Indochina. The names are ordered by year of death, then alphabetically. They are soldiers whose bodies lie elsewhere: missing, left in Vietnam, or returned to their families.
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