He attended the Lycée Albert Sarraut in Hanoi and then studied civil engineering at the École nationale des ponts et chaussées in Paris, and worked at a port in Le Havre.

[1] After the Japanese surrendered at the end of World War II, he contacted the Viet Minh to seek their support for Lao independence and against the French colonial rule.

During the battle of Thakhek on 21 March 1946, Souphanouvong and his forces were defeated by the French and as a result, he was wounded and fled across the Mekong River to Bangkok, Thailand.

On 13 August 1950, he was elected President of the Congress of the Lao Freedom Front, which met at the Viet Minh headquarters in Tuyen Quang, North Vietnam.

Radical goals such as dispossession, class warfare and abolition of the monarchy would not have appealed to the vast majority of the Laotian population with their Buddhist beliefs.

He is thus part of a tradition of many aristocrats in Lao history who sought the support of one of the two large neighbors - either Thailand or Vietnam - in order to gain or retain power.

During the national unity government under his neutralist half-brother Souvanna Phouma, he was Minister for Planning, Reconstruction and Urban Development from 1957 to 1958.

Souphanouvong continued to advocate for Pathet Lao-neutralist cooperation and contributed to the negotiations that led to the International Agreement on the Neutrality of Laos, which was signed in Geneva in 1962.

After the assassination of leftist Foreign Minister Quinim Pholsena on 1 April 1963, Souphanouvong left the government and retreated again to the Pathet Lao base in Sam Neua.

[6] Souphanouvong tried again to create an alliance of Pathet Lao and neutralists to end the Laotian Civil War, in which his eldest son was killed.

[10][11] He is celebrated by the leadership of the Lao People's Democratic Republic and its press organs as a hero and "light figure" of the revolution and the Laotian nation.

Especially on his 95th birthday in 2004, officials have increasingly emphasized his role in recent Laotian history and his services to the revolution, independence and national interests as well as the preservation of peace.