Courting North Korea

"We didn't decide out of the blue to take on students from North Korea, the decision was made by the French culture ministry to whom we answer. This is over our heads."
"There is often an Asian man in a three-piece suit waiting in the courtyard, checking up on attendance and if they get good results. When one [student] failed part of his exam and was sent home, a representative from the North Korean delegation in Paris wanted to take it in his place. We had to explain that wasn't possible."
La Villette school head teacher, Paris

"There was an attempt to force him to go back, but it is thought he escaped and is somewhere in France. There is an attempt to locate him but he hasn't been found yet."
Diplomatic source

"Since the 1980s, when the regime changes and someone is executed and his relatives and friends and family are studying abroad, they are brought home."
"If Han returned he would likely be kept in a political prison or executed. That has happened many times. He knew what was awaiting him, so he escaped."
Park Sung-jin, Yonhap (South Korea) news agency Paris correspondent

Chilling out as an entitled student in a prestigious French university is a privilege of the high-placed in North Korea, those young people whose families have found favour by their living demi-god, the incomparable, flawless, admirable and adorable Kim Jong Un. But then, favour can turn on a dime with the inscrutable, volatile and voracious Dear Leader and Father of the Nation. He may suddenly, lethally decide that a trusted comrade is actually a traitor.

In the three years since he came to power, Kim Jong-un has wrought significant changes on his nation, none of them of a humanitarian hue... Photo: AFP/GETTY

When such a decision takes place, that a formerly trusted member of the Great Leader's retinue is no longer to be welcomed within the inner circle, his/her time on Earth is extremely foreshortened. Tainted by association, members of that fated-for-immediate-death's family also face the death penalty for daring to exist. Although such events can be unexpected there can be no doubt that the realization that anyone is capable of raising the ire of jolly young Kim lurks in many nervous minds.

So when an aide to Kim Jong Un's uncle whom the Great One accused of betrayal and summarily executed was himself invited to the House of Death, his son, living abroad as a student in Paris, knew enough about his country's culture and very long arm capable of extracting him or killing him, to make himself scarce. An attempt at abduction evidently did take place, but was evaded. That young man will go far.

An architecture student, he has been referred to by foreign diplomats aware of the situation, only by his surname of Han. Believed to be the son of a close confidante of the once-powerful Jang Song Thaek who married Kim's aunt, news of his father's recent murder representing one more victim in the purge of Jang's allies excited him to action. His disappearance has revealed a connection between France and the North Korean regime.

France evidently invited North Korean students of privileged backgrounds to study architecture in Paris, from 2002 forward. Studying at the prestigious Ecole Nationale Superieure d'Architecture de Paris-La Villette, Han was there from 2012, among a dozen other North Koreans. In their third year of a five-year course, they would no doubt be a credit to their home country.

The head teacher interviewed described her consternation when the students first arrived, wearing badges bearing the portrait of "Dear Leader". It was observed that the students were kept under constant surveillance. The French foreign minister admitted a "co-operation program with students from North Korea trained in architecture in Paris" had been established for a decade.

With the inauguration of the program established by the-then French foreign ministry to establish means of "maintaining contact between the two countries", (!) the recommended courses were in "priority sectors, like medicine, food or construction", but it would appear, the North Koreans were invested in one field only: architecture.

The choice as strange as the compulsory adoring obsession with Dear Leader who has no interest in providing sufficient food, housing and medical care for his suffering population.