Before 1945, numerous administrative reforms were realised in French Indochina. These reforms focussed primarily on indigenous institutions at different levels of administration which had hitherto been preserved even though quite broadly altered in the protectorate countries, and much less so than in the colonies themselves. In all cases, they were adapted to the requirements of the French authority at both a central and at local levels. Numerous modifications to those institutions created by the French were also subsequently brought about so as to direct and to control those indigenous structures which had been maintained. These reforms were dictated by political considerations, under a willingness to profoundly transform the colonised societies, and also by procedural considerations, in order to ensure at the lowest possible cost an effective control over the territories. The decision to reform was taken sometimes in France, by the Minister in charge of the French colonies, and otherwise in the Far East by the colonial authorities themselves, and in particular, though not exclusively, by the Governor-General of Indochina. Hence, we see but mixed outcomes from the incessant changes that affected the peninsula.