Over a century ago, two young Chinese students moved to France for a work-study program. But after their time in Europe, they would eventually grow up to lay the foundations of the modern Chinese state. 

One of the students, 16-year-old Deng Xiaoping, traveled from China to France in the cargo hold of a boat with over 100 other students. He then spent his time working in factories and studying Marxism before moving to Moscow.

He then become the leader of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in the late 1970s.

Zhou Enlai is another person who spent part of his youth in France. And like Deng Xiaoping, he would later go on to help lead the CPC.

As a young student he traveled from Shanghai to France with the desire to one day return and transform China. After a time in Paris's Latin Quarter, he moved on to London to study the history of the British labor movement.

Then in 1924, Zhou returned to China to help with the revolution.