Lee to make state visit to France from Sunday, promote K-content at Lumière Summit

President Lee Jae Myung will make a four-day state visit to France beginning Sunday at the invitation of French President Emmanuel Macron.

Wi Sung-lac, chief of the presidential National Security Office, announced the trip at a briefing at Chunchugwan on Friday, saying Lee will be in France from Sept. 6 through Sept. 9.

The visit was arranged after Macron, during his trip to South Korea in April, invited Lee to serve as co-chair of the Lumière Summit and proposed the state visit.

Wi said the two countries would use the Lumière Summit to “further expand the foundation for K-content and Korean companies to enter European and global markets, together with France, which has led the birth and growth of the film industry.”

Lee is set to arrive in France on Sunday evening and, starting Monday, will co-chair the Lumière Summit alongside Macron in Saint-Paul-de-Vence in southern France.

Co-chaired by the two heads of state, the Lumière Summit goes beyond simple cultural exchange — it brings together more than 150 top-level figures from the global cultural sector to reshape the landscape of the screen industry. It has been dubbed the “Davos Forum of the film world.”

Lee will then travel to Paris for two days of bilateral state-visit engagements beginning Tuesday.

On Tuesday, the two leaders will hold a one-on-one luncheon at the Élysée Palace, followed by an expanded summit with delegations from both sides.

Lee will then attend a Korea-France business round table involving more than 20 companies from the two countries, and a state dinner is scheduled for the evening.

On Wednesday, Lee will meet with French National Assembly Speaker Braun-Pivet, hold a luncheon with the Korean diaspora in France, and receive OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann.

Wi said the state visit is expected to “add new momentum to South Korea‘s expansion of diplomacy toward Europe.”

France is the second-largest economy in the EU and seventh in the world, a UN Security Council P5 member, and this year‘s G7 chair.

Wi added that the visit would “further solidify the foundation for sustainable development of bilateral relations by expanding cooperation in advanced technology sectors — including AI, space, nuclear energy and biotech — with France, a leader in future industries, and by invigorating exchanges in youth and science and technology.”

He went on to say that “through the summit with the French president, we expect to be able to respond to the rapidly shifting international order and produce concrete cooperation outcomes spanning security, the economy, science and technology, culture, and people-to-people exchanges.”