Relations between the North Korea and France

This article treats relations free - North-Korean .

Within the European Union, France is the only country, with the Estonia, not to recognize the democratic Popular republic of Korea or North Korea.

This situation results in the weakness of the bilateral relations between the two countries. Some also see a deliberate choice there to be aligned diplomatically on the United States being the North Korea.

Bilateral relations still little developed

Economic exchanges

The bilateral commercial exchanges are developed little: in 2005, the French imports coming from the North Korea rose to 24 million euros, and export Frenchwomen towards the North Korea to 6 million euros, that is to say a total volume of commercial exchanges of 30 million euros, accounting for 1% of the foreign trade North-Korean. The place of the North Korea in the French foreign trade is even weaker.

The North Korea exports textiles and Raw materials towards France. The mining resources of North Korea (iron, lead, copper, gold, etc) are more particularly likely to answer at the request of the French companies, very little established in North Korea, in spite of a presence in the field of the production of cartoons (the films of Corto Maltese are thus carried out with Pyongyang.

The Hotel Ryugyong, unfinished, corresponded to the old project of a French company, which should have been carried out within the framework of a joint-venture.

The good education level of the paid North-Koreans represents another comparative asset, but the French investments remain less important than those their German and British counterparts.

Exchanges of people

More than one about fifty citizens North-Korean are present in France (to be compared to some 6.700 South-Koreans).

This number is however increasing: these data include students (training in linguistic formation and in the field of the administrative co-operation, students in architecture for a cycle for more than one year), as well as the diplomats (and their families) of the general delegation of the democratic Popular republic of Korea in France, which is also the embassy of the North Korea at UNESCO. Other European countries that France, the Germany, the Italy and the Austria, also accommodate students North-Korean in architecture.

Of the French are also present in North Korea, for economic motives, or within the framework of public or private operations of co-operation: since January 2006, a French reader is installed with Pyongyang; two ONG Frenchwomen, First Urgency and Humane Triangle Generation carry out projects of humanitarian aid

The training of French in North Korea and Korean in France

French was a long time one of the principal foreign languages of teaching in North Korea, taking into account in particular the bonds maintained by the democratic Popular republic Korea with certain French-speaking States the Third world like the Algérie and the Guinea. The more recent promotion of English in North Korea largely took place with the detriment of French.

The choice of France not to establish diplomatic relations also takes part of the retreat of the teaching of French in North Korea: it results from it in particular the absence from the Alliance Fran1caise as a democratic Popular republic of Korea, partly mitigated by the installation of a French reader Pyongyang since January 2006. Consequently, the teaching of French in Korea remains initially assured by the Suisse.

As for the teaching of Korean in France (exclusively in cycle post-baccalaureat), it very remains late compared to the training of Japanese and Chinese, although Korean is the language common to the North Korea and the South Korea, this last State having become the eleventh world economic power. The Korean handbooks available in France are based on standard Korean used in Seoul and in South Korea, the differences with Korean of use in north being in any event tiny.

Possibilities of opening of not concretized diplomatic relations

France chooses South Korea in the bipolar context of the cold war

France took part, at the sides of the United States, the Guerre of Korea: it results from it that free-Korean associations of friendship, in particular made up of the war veterans of the French battalion of Korea, marked by a strong anticommunism, contributed to the establishment of privileged relations with the South Korea. Moreover, in the context of the cold war, the establishment of diplomatic relations with one or other Korea reflected the bipartition of the world. Among the Western States, only some neutral countries - as the Sweden - had established diplomatic relations with the two Korean States aspiring each one to represent the whole of the peninsula.

However increased exchanges as of the years 1960

However, economic successes of the North Korea in the years 1960 and 1970, as well as the policy of independence of the president Kim It-sung with respect to the USSR (the North Korea did not shelter sovetic troops after 1948 and did not adhere to the Comecon), were then worth with the North Korea to enjoy in Occident a better image than other people's democracies.

It is in this context that was rested by Jean Suret-Canale, in 1969, the Association of free-Korean friendship, on the initiative in particular of elected officials of various political sensibilities (communist, gaullists, Socialists).

In 1968, the North Korea established a commercial office in France (become in 1984 a general delegation), allowing since this date of the diplomatic exchanges between the two countries.

February 15th, 1981, François Mitterrand, then candidate with the presidential election, paid a visit in North Korea. However, contrary to engagements of the candidate, France then does not cross the step of the diplomatic recognition: according to Jacques Attali in Verbatim , this decision would be ascribable to the advisers of the old socialist president who would have dissuaded it. The establishment of a rather strong embassy of UNESCO in Paris can nevertheless be perceived like a palliative with the absence of diplomatic relations: today still, the acting general of the democratic Popular republic of Korea in France has the rank of ambassador (at UNESCO). The functions of ambassador at UNESCO and acting general near the French Republic are currently exerted by Driven S.E Its Sin.

An occasion missed after the end of the cold war

End of the cold war, and the simultaneous entry of both Korea with UNO in 1991, changes gives it: the near total of the States of the world recognize one and the other Korean States. Contacts are made between the North Korea and the principal Western States for the establishment of diplomatic relations.

However, in 2000, whereas France chaired this year the European Union, the president Jacques Chirac and the Prime Minister Lionel Jospin reacted highly to the decision of several of his european partners (of which the Germany and the the United Kingdom) unilaterally to announce the establishment of diplomatic relations with the North Korea, while at the same time France had affirmed its community of sights with Seoul at the following day of the North-South declaration of June 15th, 2000. France then decides not to cross the course of the diplomatic recognition, and since then remains camped on its position.

The French reserves with regard to the North Korea echo a request nonsatisfied with co-operation expressed by old people's democracies where existed also a French-speaking tradition, even francophile: the Romania, the Bulgaria or the Ukraine, where the companies German, British, even Austrian, are more present than their counterparts Frenchwomen.

The current debate

Official diplomatic arguments

Officially, France puts three conditions at the establishment of diplomatic relations:

continuation of the bringing together intercoréen;
the abandonment by the North Korea of its nuclear program, whereas the negotiations on the Nuclear question in Korea continue;
improvement of the situation of the human rights, without this argument not seeming entirely convincing taking into consideration old friendly relation of France with countries also criticized on this point by the other western powers; by doing this, the French diplomacy maintains a confusion deliberated between the recognition a State and that on its government: if France does not break its diplomatic relations with the States of which the government seems to him to threaten the human rights, it is because the recognition of a State allows the establishment of an official framework for bilateral exchanges, of some nature which they are (economic, cultural…), and is distinguished radically from the recognition from a government and political regime of the State considered.

The position of France certainly is not completely isolated: the Japan and the the United States also chose still not to recognize Pyongyang, but one and the other can negotiate the establishment of diplomatic relations with the North Korea. Indeed, Japan is the old colonial power in Korea and, for this reason, the North Korea requires repairs comparable with those which the South Korea obtained; it shelters a community of 600.000 Koreans of which 35% are citizens North-Korean and is one of the four principal business partners of the North Korea. For their part, the United States engaged more than 30.000 soldiers in South Korea and constitutes one of the principal parts in the negotiations on the Nuclear question in Korea. Force is however to note that France, for its part, does not maintain the same historical relations with the North Korea to obtain an evolution of the position of Pyongyang in one of the three fields that it identified like determinants for the diplomatic recognition (the relations intercoréennes, the nuclear power North-Korean and human rights).

Other determinants in the French position

Actually, the French diplomatic not-recognition seems to obey more total considerations more on the French diplomacy:

being moved away from the United States at the time of the Iraqi crisis, France seeks to be reconciled with Washington on other diplomatic files (in spring 2006, being of Syria, Iran but also the North Korea);
little emphasized by the French press, the alignment of France on Washington with respect to Pyongyang on the nuclear question and the human rights is of as much less detrimental with the French interests than the relations with the North Korea remain little developed;

Two factors of evolution: the level of political decision and relations with Seoul

Delegations of French diplomats go regularly to Pyongyang, but they are located at a level quite lower than those of the the United States: the former American Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was thus accommodated in Pyongyang. France and the North Korea in addition accommodated parliamentary delegations of the one and the other country.

The independent factor of evolution of the French diplomatic position with respect to Pyongyang is thus due to the successive personal choices of the more French high ranking authorities (President of the Republic, Prime Minister), but also to an external factor: the quality of the bilateral relations with the South Korea.

Indeed, France a long time refused to recognize Pyongyang to maintain a privileged relation with Seoul. This argument lost its relevance after the end of the cold war and the entry of the two Korean States with UNO in 1991. If it is considered that the hardening of your American with regard to Pyongyang compromises the will of Seoul to approach North (see the detailed article American Financial sanctions against the North Korea), the alignment of France on the United States in connection with the North Korea appears particularly embarrassing for Seoul. It is thus probable that it is at the request of the South Korea that France must establish diplomatic relations with Pyongyang, without this late recognition not enabling him to withdraw all the political benefit of such a diplomatic reversal.

The French position in the negotiations on the nuclear power North-Korean

France states to support the negotiation process with six (both Korea, the United States, China, Russia and Japan) tightening with denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. Within the framework of these discussions, France announced that it " réjouit" of the agreement signed in Beijing on February 13rd, 2007 which envisages, n the other hand stop of the activities of the nuclear reactor of Yongbyon, an economic aid and energy in the North Korea.

However, whereas the agreement envisage opening of discussions for the standardization of the diplomatic relations between the United States and the North Korea on the one hand, Japan and the North Korea on the other hand, the French ministry of the foreign affairs did not make any official declaration on opening of negotiations with the democratic Popular republic of Korea for the establishment of diplomatic relations, nor on a possible French participation in the assistance measures economic mentioned in the agreement. Consequently, whereas George W. Bush US president avoided any reference to the Résolution 1718 of the Safety advice of the United Nations which set up sanctions after the Nuclear test North-Korean of October 9th, 2006, the official statement of the French ministry of the foreign affairs insists particularly on the obligation for the North Korea to conform to the resolution 1718.

Humanitarian aid in the North Korea

Contrary to the United States, to Japan or Germany, France has not provided of bilateral humanitarian aid after the North Korea was touched, in August 2007, by worst the floods for forty years.

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