King Norodom approached the French in 1861, in an attempt to stop neighbors Thailand and Vietnam from swallowing Cambodia's land.

In October 1949, the Maoist dictator Pol Pot (Saloth Sâr) went to Paris to join the French Communist Party and returns home to his native Cambodia in the summer of 1953.

These relations are gradually adapting to Cambodia's growing integration into its regional environment and its progress towards the status of a Middle Income Country, hopefully by 2020.

[4] French president Charles de Gaulle visited Cambodia in 1966 and was given a warm welcome by Prince Norodom Sihanouk.

France has one of the largest Cambodian diaspora communities outside the United States, largely because of the refugees who fled Cambodia who escaped the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s.