Whereas state activities during wartime typically depend on the use of instruments of armed forces to destroy rival armies and to repress and control civilians and territories, a large part of the state's activities in France and Indochina during the Second World War was instead socially oriented, even civic-minded. Mirroring developments in the core, the colonial state in Indochina pursued a complex range of activities, from highly coercive ones to health and education policies, some supplemented with large elements of propaganda. This chapter focuses on the authorities' use of paramilitary and sporting youth organizations to build and channel conservative and patriotic feelings toward the Vichyist regime and its ideology (I define these youth groups as paramilitary because they were civic organizations that incorporated military cadres, military structures [often divided into divisions led by a “chief”], and military goals [i.e., regime defense, internal discipline]). In the case at hand, colonial authorities sought to build allegiance to the empire by militarizing and “patriotizing” youth attitudes through sports activities and paramilitary organizations. By militarism, I mean the material and ideological process by which segments of civil society become dependent on and subordinated to a set of militaristic beliefs, values, and institutions (Enloe 1983: 7–9; 1989: 139–140; Mann 1984: 25). In both cases the French administration operated only at the will of the occupiers; because the French state did not monopolize the means of violence in either location — due to the occupation of France by Germany and the stationing of Japanese troops in Indochina, creating two sets of hybrid powers – it redefined the roles of collaborators by devising new techniques to sustain its presence, such as youth corps.