President Park to visit France in 40 years

"In just six months since I came to France, I had to return to Korea. I was just about to take on new challenges but a violent storm whipped me." This is an excerpt from President Park Geun-hye`s autobiography titled "Despair inures me to hardship and hope moves me."

After graduating from Sogang University in February 1974, President Park went to France for further study with a dream to become a professor. President Park`s aides say her life in France must have been a bittersweet memory to her. France is the only country where President Park actually lived besides Korea.

President Park is known to have told her acquaintances that her life in France was one of the happiest moments. According to her autobiography, President Park stayed at a boarding house in France and enjoyed an unprecedented ordinary life there, having free discussions with students from various countries and going for outing. Her autobiography reads, "I could see humble lifestyles of French people. I pictured for a moment what my life would be like in the future. I had hoped to meet a nice person some day and have a family."

However, after her six-month stay in France, President Park heard the devastating news of death of her mother and first lady Yook Young-soo while traveling with her friends. President Park recalls the time, "I felt like I had an electric shock. It was like a sharp knife stabbed to my heart. The whole world turned black."

In 40 years, President Park will visit France for the second time. From Saturday through Monday, she will have her first Europe tour since inauguration as president.

President Park had visited Europe in 2000 as member of the National Assembly`s Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee to conduct a national affairs audit. Back then, she visited just Korean embassies in Spain and Morocco. Though committee members visited the Korean embassy in France in 2001, but President Park visited Korean embassies in Canada and Mexico. As a special envoy for president or to join seminars, she had visited the U.K., Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal and Greece, but not France.

On President Park`s feelings of visiting France in 40 years, one presidential aide says, "The president has very fond memories of France that she had in her 20s. The country seems to remind her of old memories."

The late former President Park Chung-hee is also known to have been particularly fond of France. According to a recently released secret history, he had great fondness for Napoleon and President Charles de Gaulle, and attempted twice to visit France during his term as president. However, he failed and couldn`t go to the country even once during his 18-year term. According to a diplomatic document, while meeting with the French ambassador to Korea in 1971, he said, "When young, (I) studied French history going against my teacher who was Japanese. I made my daughter study French."

President Park Geun-hye has an outstanding French speaking ability thanks to her study when young, and will speak some French during her forthcoming visit in France. The Presidential Office is known to have examined President Park`s visit University of Grenoble where she had attended but cannot be arranged due to long travel time.

On why President Park didn`t visit France, her aides said, "There was no specific reason." Yet the country is where she heard of her mother`s shocking death, where her father had longed to go to, and a place filled with her dream. Personally, President Park will cherish her upcoming days in France.