ABSTRACT
By 1930, the knots of Vietnamese students in Paris and other university centers were leading a revolution in the political attitudes of Vietnamese youth. The most informed official analysis of the social origins of the migrating students was the Thalamas report, compiled in 1930 by Indochina's director of public instruction. One fruitful way to explore the eclipse of collaborationism is within the context of the personal estrangement and alienation suffered by the Vietnamese, both in France and after their return. The growth of radical nationalism among the students has a dimension very much rooted in the emotions stirred up by being in France. The student did not become estranged from his own people, or at least admitted nothing of the kind. Rather, he learned to use his newly acquired proximity to Frenchmen as a way of defining himself against the French.
