Economy of Vietnam
Until the French colonization in the mid-19th century, Vietnam's economy had been mostly agrarian, subsistence-based and village-oriented. French colonizers, however, deliberately developed the regions differently as the French needed raw materials and a market for French manufactured goods, designating the South for agricultural production as it was better suited for agriculture, and the North for manufacturing as it was naturally wealthy in mineral resources. Though the plan exaggerated regional divisions, the development of exports—coal from the North, rice from the South—and the importation of French manufactured goods stimulated domestic commerce.
Vietnamese people in France
During the colonial period, there was a significant representation of Vietnamese students in France, which largely consisted of members from the elite class and royal household. Professional and blue-collar workers also migrated from Vietnam during this period, with some settling permanently. One of the few monuments dating back to these earliest waves of Vietnamese arriving in France is the Temple du Souvenir Indochinois, originally erected in 1907 and subsequently relocated to the Jardin tropical de Paris in the Bois de Vincennes.