Following the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, North Vietnamese forces moved into Saigon displacing thousands of people from their homes. Vietnamese refugees boarded small fishing and rowing boats, taking flight across the South China Sea in search of refuge from neighbouring Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia. Images of men, women and children in overcrowded wooden boats captured media headlines across the world. Their plight garnered both outrage and sympathy in the West as the British and French governments mobilised to receive 19,000 and 119,000 ‘boat people’ respectively.

In France, the defining moment in public and political opinion occurred in November 1978 when the vessel, Hai Hong, with 2,564 refugees aboard, spent three weeks stranded off the coast of Malaysia.