ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that French rule in Indochina effectively came to an end in the summer of 1945. In Cambodia the French were forced in October 1945 to make conciliatory gestures to the members of the indigenous elite whom they needed to run the kingdom's day-to-day affairs. In Phnom Penh Cambodians restored the street names honoring French colonial heroes and French events that had been changed to Cambodian ones in 1945. The new political parties in Phnom Penh were fearful of Thai intrusions into Cambodian politics. They were probably even more frightened, however, by developments inside Vietnam, where Communist guerrillas in the south were threatening French rule and a Communist government in the north enjoyed de facto independence. After independence Son Ngoc Thanh's importance faded, and his following decreased. In the late 1950s and 1960s he eked out a shadowy existence working for the Thai and the Vietnamese in their efforts to destabilize King Norodom Sihanouk's regime.
