Vietnam confirms top leader to make unprecedented visit to France HANOI - Vietnam confirmed Wednesday that Communist Party chief Le Kha Phieu, the number one in the country's political hierarchy, is to make a landmark visit to former colonial power France "soon." The statement from the party central committee carried in official newspapers gave no dates for the visit and Vietnamese officials declined to elaborate. But French diplomats here said they expected Phieu to visit from May 22 to The visit -- the first to France by a Vietnamese communist party chief -- is the fruit of lengthy negotiations between Paris and Hanoi. As long ago as last year French diplomats said they hoped the communist party chief would visit but the trip never materialized. Following the confirmation from Hanoi, the French embassy here said it would hold a briefing on Phieu's visit Friday. The speaker of the French upper house, Christian Poncelet, announced that Phieu would travel to France during a six-day visit here last month but there was no immediate confirmation from the Vietnamese authorities. "Mr. Le Kha Phieu will be received in Paris by President (Jacques) Chirac and Prime Minister Lionel Jospin as well as visiting the Senate," Poncelet said. The communist party chief is also expected to visit the headquarters of European aircraft consortium Airbus at Toulouse in the southwest of France amid speculation that Vietnam is looking to update its aircraft fleet. Diplomats here said they expected Phieu to travel on to Italy from France. Even though the communist party chief is not Vietnam's head of state, both visits are being made at the invitation of the countries' presidents -- Chirac for France and Carlo Azeglio Ciampi for Italy, they said. Vietnam has maintained close relations with France in recent years, hosting the two-yearly summit of French-speaking nations in 1997. But France's efforts to promote the use of its language here have so far borne little fruit. French has almost entirely been superseded by English as a second language. France remains Vietnam's biggest European trade partner, but it is outstripped by the United States and a raft of Asian countries. Exports of 300 million dollars last year ranked 10th, while imports of 355 million dollars ranked 11th. France is still a big investor in Vietnam however -- total investments stood at 1.791 billion dollars last month according to Vietnamese figures, making France the sixth largest investor after Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong. And amid a slump in investments by Asian countries in the wake of the regional financial crisis, France was Vietnam's biggest investor last year with 302 million dollars in new investments. Italy is currently a very small investor in Vietnam. It stood 33rd last month with investments of just 35 million dollars. But Rome has been looking to boost its ties with Hanoi. A top Italian foreign ministry official visited Vietnam last month. AFP - May 17, 2000.