Michel Aflaq
Bitar traveled to France in 1929 to study in the Sorbonne. There he became acquainted with Michel Aflaq, also the son of a Midan grain merchant who was from a Christian Orthodox family. They were both interested in the political and intellectual movements of the time, and began applying nationalist and Marxist ideas to the situation of their homeland. Bitar returned to Syria in 1934, and took a job teaching physics and mathematics at the "Tajhiz al-Ula", where Aflaq was already a teacher.