Treaty of Hué (1884)

The Treaty of Huế or Protectorate Treaty was concluded on 6 June 1884 between France and Annam (Vietnam). It restated the main tenets of the punitive Harmand Treaty of 25 August 1883, but softened some of the harsher provisions of this treaty. The treaty, which formed the basis for the protectorates of Annam and Tonkin, and for French colonial rule in Vietnam during the next seven decades, was negotiated by Jules Patenôtre, France's minister to China, and is often known as the Patenôtre Treaty.

On 6 June 1884, three weeks after the conclusion of the Tientsin Accord with China, which implicitly renounced China's historic suzerainty over Vietnam, the French concluded a treaty with Vietnam which provided for a French protectorate over both Annam and Tonkin. The treaty was negotiated for France by Jules Patenôtre, the new French minister to China.

The new treaty replaced the notoriously vague 'Philastre treaty' of 15 March 1874 (the Treaty of Saigon), which had given France limited commercial privileges in Tonkin. It restated, though in milder language, many of the provisions included in the punitive Harmand Treaty of August 1883, which had never been ratified by the French parliament. It entrenched the French protectorate over both Annam and Tonkin and allowed the French to station residents in most Vietnamese towns. It also granted certain trade privileges to France.

Revision of the Harmand treaty had been foreshadowed in January 1884, when the French diplomat Arthur Tricou visited Huế to obtain its ratification from the Vietnamese government. Tricou hinted that some of the more objectionable clauses of the Harmand treaty might be revised if the Vietnamese demonstrated their sincerity, and on 1 January 1884 the Vietnamese government declared its full and complete adhesion to the Harmand treaty. Significantly, it also said that it 'trusted in the goodwill of the French Republic that some of its provisions would be softened at a later date' (s'en remettant au bon vouloir de la République quant aux adoucissements qui pourraient y être ultérieurement apportés).

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