French Minister Fleur Pellerin began a highly anticipated visit yesterday to South Korea, the land of her birth.

Abandoned as a baby in 1973 in Seoul, she was adopted by a French couple six months later from an orphanage and moved to France. Yesterday was the first time Ms Pellerin, 39, had returned to her homeland.

Her unusual success story is a source of public pride, admiration and curiosity.

"On a personal level, it's true that I'm excited," Ms Pellerin told Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo in an interview published before her arrival.

"I feel very proud to set foot in South Korea as a government minister of France," she added.

It is a working visit for Ms Pellerin, the junior minister for small and medium enterprises, innovation, and the digital economy. She will meet President Park Geun Hye and top officials of major conglomerates Samsung and Hyundai, AFP reported.

But the South Korean public is more interested in Ms Pellerin herself and, in particular, her ethnic roots.

Her appointment last year as a minister in President Francois Hollande's government made the front-page news in South Korea, and spawned a number of TV specials about her life.

Nationalist elements in Korea have played up her ethnicity as a factor in her success; while others have said her appointment was a testament to tolerance for South Korea, where there is still substantial discrimination against immigrants.

South Koreans should pay heed to "the soundness of a society which raised one child with skin of a different colour and an unfortunate background to become a minister", the independent Hankyoreh Daily said at the time.

Ms Pellerin doesn't speak Korean and has made it clear that she has no intention of trying to trace her birth parents.

Raised in a middle-class environment in France, she was a successful student, educated at elite institutions which serve as finishing schools for the country's ruling class.

Following her trip to South Korea, Ms Pellerin is scheduled to move on to Japan, where she had lived for a year previously.

Get The New Paper for more stories.