PARIS - When the most prominent new face in France's effort to oversee the new economy speaks, her pronouncements may be followed almost as closely in Silicon Valley and Seoul as in Paris.

Fleur Pellerin, a deputy finance minister, is the point woman in President Francois Hollande's campaign to stimulate innovation. But in trying to put a French imprint on the digital economy, she has been drawn into a growing number of disputes with technology companies in the United States like Google, Twitter and Amazon.

In South Korea, it is Ms. Pellerin's personal story that fascinates. Abandoned in Seoul as a newborn, she was taken in by a French family who raised her in the suburbs of Paris.

Ms. Pellerin's appointment last May prompted talk of a new orientation in French technology policy, where mistrust of foreign companies has sometimes been the guiding principle.

Ms. Pellerin, 39, is the first French government minister of Asian extraction. Although she has never visited the land of her birth, in French technology circles her rise fostered a perhaps naive hope: Might Ms. Pellerin transform France into a European version of South Korea, where ultrahigh-speed broadband is ubiquitous and electronics giants like Samsung and LG have become world-beaters?

"I would like to make France one of the top nations in terms of digital innovation," Ms. Pellerin said. "If we don't act in the next few years it will be too late."

Yet anyone expecting a drastic break with French governing traditions might be disappointed. Her rise through the system was largely indistinguishable from that of many members of the French administration.

Raised by middle-class parents her father, who has a doctorate in nuclear physics, is a small-business owner Ms. Pellerin was educated at elite institutions, including Sciences Po and the Ecole Nationale d'Administration, which serve as finishing schools for the country's ruling class. She worked as a magistrate at the Cour des Comptes, a body that audits the public finances, and in public relations.

As for growing up with the knowledge that she had been abandoned and adopted, Ms. Pellerin said this was something "I hardly speak about."

"I really consider myself French," she said.

Ms. Pellerin's husband, Laurent Olleon, is an official in the office of Marylise Lebranchu, the minister for the reform of the state and decentralization.

In her new role in government, Ms. Pellerin has become the central figure in Mr. Hollande's drive to establish "digital sovereignty" the principle that French rules should apply to international Internet companies. This has prompted clashes with American companies.

Overseeing investigations of these companies while wooing them to invest in France is a balancing act, she said.

"It's not a crusade against Americans," she said. "We are just trying to put everyone on a level playing field."

Ms. Pellerin's appointment last year drew considerable attention in South Korea, where reactions ranged from pride in her success to soul-searching over the large number of Korean babies that have been given up by their genetic parents and sent abroad.

Ms. Pellerin said she had been surprised by the "buzz" in South Korea over her French government appointment. Not only has she never been to Korea, she also does not speak the language. But she is trilingual, also speaking English and German. Any evident ethnic pride is of the more local sort. "I was quite happy with the reaction in the French Asian community," said Ms. Pellerin, who brings a bit of Parisian chic to the otherwise drab government of Mr. Hollande, greeting visitors in leather trousers and a casual blazer.

Frederic Montagnon, a co-founder of Overblog, a French blogging platform, said Ms. Pellerin had missed an opportunity to use her high profile to positive effect. "Unfortunately," he said, "Fleur Pellerin and the other members of the goverment speak only when there is a crisis."One clash is with American companies, including Google and Amazon, over the strategies they use to minimize European taxes.

And then there is Twitter. A French court is investigating whether the company should provide account details of users who posted anti-Semitic comments last October. The company removed some of the postings after complaints that they violated French laws against hate speech but says it will not divulge user information without a court order in the United States, where Twitter is based.

Ms. Pellerin's take? "We really would like to welcome Twitter in France," she said. "But the question is, How can you let people on social networks violate local laws?"

The New York Times

(China Daily 03/17/2013 page10)