[Seo Mideum's Book Review] The Words the French Minister Couldn’t Say When He Came to Korea

Former French Culture Minister Fleur Pellerin's Essay
Introducing Her Identity That Koreans Were Curious About
Creating a Connection with Korea Through Invisible Lines

[Asia Economy Reporter Seomideum] “Do you feel Korean? Or do you feel French?”

This was the question Korean reporters asked Fleur Pellerin, then French Minister of Culture, when she visited Korea in 2013 to attend a conference. They probably wanted to hear her say, “I have the sentiment of a Korean,” but such a question was very embarrassing for Fleur. Having been adopted to France at six months old, she had no special feelings toward the country she was visiting for the first time in her life.

Win or Enjoy (Kim Young-sa Publishing) contains the feelings she could not express at the time. It tells the story of what kind of life she lived in France, how she grew up in an unfamiliar society and culture, and how she overcame barriers.

Fleur was born on August 29, 1973, presumably in Seoul, and was found just before death due to malnutrition and dehydration. On March 1, 1974, she arrived at Le Bourget Airport in France, where her adoptive parents were waiting in the lounge.

Her parents were ordinary “commoners.” They devoted themselves to her education, and thanks to that, Fleur graduated from prestigious Grandes ?coles such as ESSEC Business School, Sciences Po, and the ?cole Nationale d’Administration, and got a job at the French Court of Auditors. She entered politics in 2002 by writing speeches for the Socialist Party’s presidential candidate and worked in Fran?ois Hollande’s presidential campaign in 2011. This background led her to become Minister of Culture in 2014.

She also faced adversity. Just as she was gaining recognition before joining the cabinet, she divorced her husband and suffered from depression. Feeling that she had taken her daughter’s father away touched her own birth wounds, making “everything I do, who I am, and all I have seem useless.” She endured two years when “life as a whole seemed meaningless and empty.” Although she could have approached the core of her wounds by finding her biological parents, Fleur believed that “knowing who your parents are does not make you a more complete person or bring peace of mind.” In the book, she explains, “A child abandoned by biological parents cannot grow up like other adults, no matter how much they are cherished by adoptive parents who treat them like family.”

Fleur fully assimilated into French culture, but the French perspective was different. She was insulted with terms like “housemaid” and “geisha” because she was East Asian, and she was often the subject of controversy for various reasons. Eventually, a remark on a broadcast that she had not read the works of a French Nobel laureate in literature became a problem, and she stepped down from her ministerial position in 2016. She spent a time when “everything, including people around me who no longer respected me as before and kept their distance, was hard to endure.”

Afterward, she chose to collaborate with Korean companies. In 2016, she partnered with Naver to establish a venture capital fund and was tasked with investing 200 million euros in European tech startups. During this process, a letter of intent signed before the business was mistaken for a contract, leading to an 18-month investigation for violating public official ethics. Despite these difficulties, she is now building a deep connection with Korea. Helping Korean and European startups expand globally, she says, “Invisible lines meet and create something important between Korea and me,” and reflects, “After times of distancing, forgetting, and disinterest, we chose to meet again. Is there anything more beautiful and peaceful than reconciling fate with roots?”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.