Count Justin Napoléon Samuel Prosper de Chasseloup-Laubat (1805–1873) was a French politician who became Minister of the Navy under Napoleon III. He was the youngest son of the General de Chasseloup-Laubat

François, marquis de Chasseloup-Laubat

François, marquis de Chasseloup-Laubat , French general and military engineer, was born at Saint-Sernin , of a noble family, and entered the French engineers in 1774....

. Chasseloup-Laubat was an enthusiastic proponent of Colonial Imperialism

Imperialism

Imperialism, as defined by Dictionary of Human Geography, is "the creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationships, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination." The imperialism of the last 500 years,...

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Chasseloup-Laubat was Minister of the Navy and the Colonies during the attacks on Danang and Saigon in Vietnam

Vietnam

Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

 led by Rigault de Genouilly and his successor Counter-Admiral Page

Page

-Position or occupation:* Page , a traditionally young male servant* Page * Page of Honour, a ceremonial position in the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom* A participant in any of the following programs:...

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When in 1863 the Vietnamese diplomat Phan Thanh Gian

Phan Thanh Gian

Phan Thanh Giản or Phan Thanh Jan was a Grand Counsellor at the Nguyễn court in Vietnam. He led an embassy to France in 1863, and committed suicide when France completed the invasion of Southern Vietnam in 1867.Phan Thanh Giản's grandfather was an ethnic Chinese , while his grandmother was a...

 visited Napoleon III on an embassy in Paris, Chasseloup-Laubat pressured Napoleon III to have him give up a promisse he had made to return territories captured by the French. He threatened Napoleon III with his resignation and that of the whole cabinet, forcing him to order the cancellation of the agreement in June 1864

He worked in combination with his counterpart, Foreign Minister Drouyn de Lhuys.