The deputies attracted the disapproval of France's Socialist Prime Minister, Paul Ramadier, and the Minister of the Colonies, Marius Moutet. The French had humiliatingly had to ask Britain to yield Madagascar after World War II ended, and French political leaders suspected that Britain or South Africa would attempt to wrest Madagascar from France. The MDRM quest for independence was therefore received as a blow to French prestige and authority, and it raised the specter of the violent conflict launched by Vietnamese nationalists in French Indochina the month before.
