The ship docked in Marseilles in late September. The Cambodians scattered to destinations determined beforehand by the Cambodian Ministry of Education. Most of them traveled from Marseilles by train. To reach the station from the port, they had to climb a wide stairway flanked by giant statues depicting France’s overseas possessions in allegorical form. The statues are still there. One of them, “Our Possessions in Asia,” is a pubescent girl in Angkorean dishabille (Cambodia) lounging on an elbow as she is offered a Buddha image and some fruit by younger females who are naked to the waist (Laos and Vietnam). The tableau encapsulated three stereotypical views the French had of the Cambodians and Indochinese: They were childish, exotic, and sexually adventurous. Saloth Sar and his friends had been subjected to these stereotypes in school. In the chilly air, they hurried past the statues to catch their trains.2

Saloth Sar started out in Paris, as many Cambodian students did, by taking a room in the Indochinese pavilion of the Cite Universitaire, a complex of dormitories for French and foreign students on the southern edge of the city. “In the first year,” Pol Pot recalled in 1978, “I worked rather hard. I was a fairly good student.” Aside from a few short holidays, he spent more than three years in Paris. We know that he enrolled for courses connected with radio-electricity, and we know where he lived in 1951 and 1952. We have scattered, contradictory impressions from Cambodians who knew him at this time. His academic career made little if any difference to him. He took no examinations and lost his scholarship as a result. By the time he left for home in December 1952 he had gained no formal degree.3

The most important event in this period from a biographical perspective was that Saloth Sar became a member of the French Communist party. This move probably occurred in 1952. When he returned to Cambodia, he joined the Vietnamese-dominated Communist resistance against the French and became a member of the Indochina Communist party, since there was not yet an autonomous Cambodian party he could join. These affiliations and Sar’s long entanglement with Vietnam colored the rest of his life.

His associations and friendships with other Cambodians studying in Paris also had a decisive influence on his career. His most significant relationships were with radicals Thiounn Mumm and Keng Vannsak, who arrived in Paris in 1946, and with his friend Ieng Sary, who arrived toward the end of 1950.