President Lee Jae-myung holds a summit with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on the 8th, the centrepiece of a state visit running from the 6th to the 9th.

Mr Lee is to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier beneath the Arc de Triomphe and attend an official welcoming ceremony, before a one-on-one lunch with Mr Macron at the Elysee Palace and expanded talks with both delegations present.

The talks are expected to centre on wider cooperation in future industries including artificial intelligence, nuclear power, space and biotechnology, alongside culture and content. Both countries have substantial nuclear industries, a field long regarded as one where cooperation and competition sit together.

A Korea-France business roundtable with about twenty companies from the two sides follows the summit. A state dinner hosted by the Macrons is scheduled for the evening.

The government describes the visit as an exercise in setting a framework for cooperation rather than concluding individual contracts. The composition of the companies at the roundtable may nonetheless indicate where follow-up discussions are headed.

On the final day, the 9th, Mr Lee is due to meet the president of the French National Assembly, hold a lunch meeting with overseas Koreans and receive the secretary-general of the OECD. Paris hosts Korean and Chinese communities that are among the larger ones in Europe.

Attention also falls on whether the talks touch on the Middle East. France is among the European Union members that have long operated naval assets toward the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf.