Monday, September 26, 2011

Korean Adoptee Elected to French Senate

Interesting story:
A South Korean adoptee won a seat in the French Senate in the country's parliamentary election on Sunday, becoming the first ethnic Korean to advance to France's top political body, reports Yonhap News Agency.

Jean-Vincent Place, 43, who was adopted by a French family in the 1970s and grew to become a politician, was elected as a French senator after running in a constituency of the province of Ile de France on the leftist Green Party ticket.

Born in Seoul in 1968, Place was adopted by a French lawmaker and his wife at the age of seven and became a naturalized French citizen two years later. He majored in economics in college, and began his career as a financial auditor.

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Less than a month prior to Sunday's election, Place was embroiled in a racist controversy as Alain Marleix, a lawmaker of French President Nicolas Sarkozy's conservative Union for a Popular Movement, accused him of being a "Korean national" and warned him of "paying a price," prompting the then-leading candidate to consider a lawsuit in response, according to local media reports.

1 comment:

Jolanthe said...

Have you heard about Philipp Rösler? He's a Vietnamese adoptee and the German Vice Chancellor;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philipp_R%C3%B6sler