French doctor secretly treated Kim Jong-il for a stroke

KIM JONG-IL'S love of France was not confined to the cases of Hennessy cognac and Bordeaux wines he frequently had shipped over to North Korea, it seems. When the Dear Leader suffered a stroke three years ago, his worried officials even sent for a French neurosurgeon.

"When they came to get me in 2008, I didn't know who I was leaving to go and see over there," Dr Francois-Xavier Roux of Sainte Anne Hospital in Paris tells The Daily Telegraph. "They don't say - they're very secret."

The North Koreans attempted to keep the identity of the Dear Patient a secret from Dr Roux even after his arrival in Pyongyang.

Although he had treated Kim once before - for a head injury in 1993 – when he arrived at the Red Cross Hospital in the North Korean capital he was handed the anonymous medical files of a number of patients. Dr Roux could immediately tell that one of the patients was seriously ill and he insisted on examining him in person. After officials hummed and hawed, he was eventually taken to see the patient - Kim Jong-il.

"When I arrived, he was in intensive care, in a coma, in a bad way," Dr Roux said.

"My job was to try and save him from this critical state by talking with the other doctors, by giving medical advice, etc. He was in a life-threatening situation."

Within ten days, Kim was conscious and speaking again. Dr Roux returned to Paris, but made follow-up visits to Pyongyang in September and October.

Dr Roux believes the North Koreans sought out a foreign doctor because they needed someone who could make important decisions without being "emotionally involved".

"My Korean colleagues were... disturbed to be making decisions for their leader," he said.

Dr Roux doesn't know why he was sought out by the North Koreans in the first place, but his nationality may have helped. In his dealings with the Dear Leader, the doctor discovered Kim held a "profound" Francophilia and hoped to establish political ties with France. ·