Gaining Independence

It is easy with hindsight to argue that French rule in Indochina came to an end in summer of 1945. this did not appear to be the case, however, to the new breed of French officials sent out by General de Gaulle's government to replace the people  who had looked after the region up to 1945. De Gaulle ,in fact, had made the recovery of the French empire, and Indochina in particular,an important goal of his government in exile .
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, these were the people whose" awakening" the French had celebrated in the 1930s they had become patriots in the meantime and from the French point of view, intellectually belligerent .many of interpreted the summer of 1945 less as a humiliation of the French that had to be avenged than as a victory for the Cambodians themselves . Cambodia. They argued, needed  to regain its independence ,A leading convert to the cause, although he was quieter than most, was the King Sihanouk .