French Military in Viet Nam

It's inconsistent with French army equipment of the time, but not absolutely impossible. French military sidearms were not very consistent at all until the 1950s, and at one time they were carrying five or six different models all at the same time. The standard issue French sidearm in the early 1950s was the MAS mle. 1950 (with lots of older M1953s and MAB mle. D pistols still in service), but it was not unusual for officers and NCOs to equip themselves with different sidearms and other gear, especially if they were on active duty in more frontierish areas (Algeria, Indochine, central Africa, etc.). The French were even using a number of German pistols like the Walther P38 and Mauser HSc made up from captured stocks and parts acquired at the end of WWII. The French army had also purchased a number of Colt 1911 pistols directly from the US during WWI, and it's not unrealistic to think that a few of those were still floating around 35 years later. Most of the other weapons shown in the movie (MAS 36 rifles and MAT-49 submachine guns) are very much what would have been seen at the time, and the producers even went to the trouble of equipping General The's US-backed men with American Garands and M1 carbines, so the technical work on firearms is pretty accurate.