Cambodians in France

Cambodians in France (French: Cambodgiens en France; Khmer: ជនជាតិខ្មែរនៅប្រទេសបារាំង) consist of ethnic Khmer people who were born in or immigrated to France. The population as of 2020 was estimated to be about 80,000 making the community one of the largest in the Cambodian diaspora. The Cambodian population in France is the most established outside Southeast Asia, with a presence dating to well before the Vietnam War and subsequent Indochina refugee crisis including the horrors of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge who took over in Phnom Penh on 17 April 1975. A few numbers of Cambodian people were able to escape and migrate to France before the Khmer Rouge took power in Cambodia as the Cambodian Civil War came to an end and overthrow U.S.-backed military dictatorship of Lon Nol and the Khmer Republic. His brother Lon Non and the other Khmer officials were arrested and executed by the CPK, the Marxist-Leninist dictatorship that seized power in Phnom Penh. 13 days before the Fall of Saigon and the Second Indochina War ended on 30 April 1975. In December 1978, after the Khmer Rouge attacked the Vietnamese border, Lê Duẩn orders his troops to attack and invade Cambodia with Soviet-backed Vietnam captured Phnom Penh against Maoist-led Khmer Rouge that been supported by Chairman Mao from Beijing that forced Pot and his Angkar troops to flee the capital back into the mountainous jungles of Anlong Veng near the Thai border which continued to do guerilla warfare from 1979 until 1997, after the kingdom was restored in 1993 with Sihanouk becoming king once again of which millions of Cambodians greeted him as their hero. Pol Pot died in his sleep at his jungle headquarters in Oddar Meanchey and was cremated near the border of Thailand.