<P> After persuading Emperor Bảo Đại to abdicate in his favour, on 2 September 1945 President Ho Chi Minh declared independence for the Democratic Republic of Vietnam . But before September's end, a force of British and Free French soldiers, along with captured Japanese troops, restored French control . Ho Chi Minh agreed to negotiate with the French in order to gain autonomy, but the Fontainebleau Agreements of 1946 failed to produce a satisfactory solution . Bitter fighting ensued in the First Indochina War as Ho and his government took to the hills . In 1949, in order to provide a political alternative to Ho Chi Minh, the French favored the creation of a unified State of Vietnam: former Emperor Bảo Đại was put back in power . Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia became associated states of the French Union and were granted more autonomy . </P> <P> 1950, however was the turning point of the war . Ho's government was recognised by the fellow Communist governments of China and the Soviet Union and Mao's government subsequently gave a fallback position to Ho's forces, as well as abundant supplies of weapons . In October 1950, the French army suffered its first major defeat with the battle of Route Coloniale 4 . Subsequent efforts by the French military managed to improve their situation only in the short term . Bảo Đại's State of Vietnam proved a weak and unstable government, and Norodom Sihanouk's Cambodia proclaimed its independence in November 1953 . Fighting lasted until May 1954, when the Viet Minh won the decisive victory against French forces at the gruelling battle of Điện Biên Phủ . </P> <P> On 20 July 1954, the Geneva Conference produced the Geneva Agreements between North Vietnam and France . Provisions included supporting the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Indochina, granting it independence from France, declaring the cessation of hostilities and foreign involvement in internal Indochina affairs, and delineating northern and southern zones into which opposing troops were to withdraw . The Agreements mandated unification on the basis of internationally supervised free elections to be held in July 1956 . </P> <P> It was at this conference that France relinquished any claim to territory in the Indochinese peninsula . The United States and South Vietnam rejected the Geneva Accords and never signed . South Vietnamese leader Diem rejected the idea of nationwide election as proposed in the agreement, saying that a free election was impossible in the communist North and that his government was not bound by the Geneva Accords . France did withdraw, turning the north over to the Communists while the Bảo Đại regime, with American support, kept control of the South . </P>

When did indochina gain independence from the french