France and Saudi Arabia signed an agreement on Monday regarding a €6 billion investment to create three theme parks some 30 kilometres north-west of Paris, the French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman made the announcement during a two-day visit to France, Macron’s office added, in what the French president dubbed an “unprecedented” project.
“22,000 jobs created. Unseen since Disneyland Paris. A new global destination”, Macron wrote on X, thanking Saudi Arabia and Qiddiya, one of the many subsidiaries of the country’s Public Investment Fund, “for their confidence in our country, in our talents and in our future”.
This project “was born out of a discussion between the president of the Republic and the crown prince in December 2024” in Riyadh, where they discovered their “shared passion” for manga, “and more specifically Dragon Ball Z”, an adviser to Macron told the press.
The first of the three parks is expected to be dedicated to this iconic Japanese franchise, although this has not been officially confirmed. The themes of the other two parks have not been revealed yet.
The parks will be built and opened in stages. Construction is expected to take several years, the president’s office said, without specifying an opening date.
Asked about entrusting such a project to Riyadh despite criticism of its human rights record, the president’s office sidestepped the issue. “At no point, when we attract a project, do we seek to lecture others”, it replied.
The presidency said it signed two other contracts with French companies during the Saudi prince’s visit: one with shipping company CMA CGM, to help develop the port of Jeddah on the Red Sea, worth $434 million, and the other with rail transport group Alstom, to supply trains for Riyadh’s metro, worth $580 million.
The trip is one of the crown prince’s rare visits abroad; Paris notes that he seldom leaves his country, except for international summits. It was his first such trip in almost a year.
On Sunday, Macron hosted the Saudi crown prince at the Esports World Cup, while Monday’s talks were also due to cover strategic issues, including the situation in the Middle East.
Critics speak up
Yet the Saudi leader’s visit has sparked strong criticism in France. Three journalists’ unions protested against Paris’ decision to host him, invoking a French investigation opened into allegations of torture and enforced disappearance, following a complaint filed in 2021 over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi national living in the US and a critic of the Saudi ruling family, was assassinated in 2018 in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. His body has never been found.
The fallout over Khashoggi’s murder effectively put a strain on Riyadh’s diplomatic relations with the West.
Prince bin Salman denied ordering the murder in a CBS interview in 2019, which he called “heinous” and said was committed by rogue operatives.
“This was a mistake. And I must take all actions to avoid such a thing in the future,” he said of the killing at the time.
In December 2021, Macron became one of the first Western leaders to meet the prince after Khashoggi’s assassination. The Saudi crown prince has since visited France several times.
‘Choose France’
In his message on X, Macron highlighted the “Choose France” programme, which he said made signing this project possible.
“That is the whole point of Choose France: to go after the most ambitious projects and make France the country where they become reality. Create jobs. Make France shine”, he said.
Since the first “Choose France” call for projects in 2018, a year after Macron came to office, more than 230 projects have been announced, representing some €87 billion and several thousand jobs, according to the Élysée.
France has attracted the most foreign investment in Europe for seven consecutive years, according to consultancy EY, but Macron said this “doesn’t come out of nowhere”.
EY said that France attracted 852 projects last year, out of 5,026 recorded in 47 European countries, a 17% drop in a challenging international environment.
France has attracted a remarkable number of AI-related projects, more than anywhere else in Europe, but industry has suffered, notably the automotive, chemicals and metals sectors.