Saudi Arabia Commits €6 Billion to Three Theme Parks in the Paris Region
Usagevpn.com – French President Emmanuel Macron confirmed on Monday that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will channel six billion euros into the construction of three theme parks situated in the northwest suburbs of Paris. The announcement, made during a high-level diplomatic meeting between Macron and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the French capital, marks one of the largest single foreign entertainment investments ever directed at mainland Europe. The Élysée Palace stated that the two leaders also addressed “major economic and strategic issues” alongside key regional matters during the visit.
A New Entertainment Hub at Cergy-Pontoise
The parks will rise on the grounds of the former Mirapolis theme park in Cergy-Pontoise, a commune roughly 35 kilometres northwest of central Paris. Mirapolis, which opened in 2012 and closed in 2015 after struggling to attract sufficient visitor numbers, had already represented an ambitious attempt to build a large-scale leisure complex in the Île-de-France region. Its site, now slated for complete redevelopment, sits within easy reach of Paris’s main rail and highway corridors, giving the new attractions direct access to both the capital’s 12-million-strong metropolitan population and the tens of millions of international visitors who pass through France each year.
The development is expected to incorporate a manga-themed attraction, a nod to the Japanese comic-book and graphic-novel tradition that has become a dominant force in global pop culture. Manga’s crossover appeal — spanning animation, video games, fashion, and live-event entertainment — makes it a natural anchor for a park targeting younger demographics and international tourists seeking experiences unavailable elsewhere in Europe.
Macron Hails a “New Global Destination”
In a post on X, Macron described the announcement as “extraordinary,” projecting that the completed parks would function as a “new global destination” and generate approximately 22,000 jobs across construction, operations, hospitality, and ancillary services. He directed particular thanks to Qiddiya, the Saudi investment and entertainment company tasked with leading the project’s development, and to the Kingdom itself.
“Thank you to Qiddiya and Saudi Arabia for their confidence in our country, our talent and our future.”
Macron went further, declaring that the scale of the investment represented something unprecedented in recent French leisure history:
“Nothing like this has been seen since Disneyland Paris.”
That comparison carries weight. Disneyland Paris, which opened in 1992 as a joint venture between the Walt Disney Company and French partners, remains the benchmark against which all major European theme-park projects are measured. Positioning the Cergy-Pontoise development in the same category signals both the ambition of the Saudi backers and the French government’s expectation that the site will rival or complement the existing Walt Disney Studios and Disneyland parks located just a few kilometres to the south.
Regional Leadership Welcomes the Investment
Valérie Pécresse, president of the Île-de-France regional council, voiced strong approval on social media, describing herself as “delighted” by the news. She noted that the region had been actively courting the project for the preceding 18 months, working through planning, infrastructure, and stakeholder channels to make the site viable for a development of this magnitude.
In a subsequent interview with France’s TF1 television network, Pécresse framed the investment in terms of national economic necessity:
“France is the world’s leading tourist destination. We need these jobs. We need these investments.”
Her remarks underscore a broader tension in French economic policy: the country consistently ranks first globally in international tourist arrivals, yet translating that foot traffic into durable, high-value employment in sectors beyond short-term hospitality has remained a persistent challenge. A multi-billion-euro entertainment complex promises precisely the kind of long-term, skilled-position creation that seasonal tourism alone cannot deliver.
Saudi Arabia’s Global Entertainment Playbook
The Cergy-Pontoise project fits squarely within the architecture of Saudi Vision 2030, the Crown Prince’s sweeping economic diversification programme designed to reduce the Kingdom’s dependence on hydrocarbon revenues. Under that blueprint, entertainment and tourism have been elevated to strategic pillars, with billions already committed to domestic mega-projects such as NEOM, Diriyah Gate, and the Qiddiya entertainment city outside Riyadh.
Qiddiya, the entity named as lead developer for the Paris-region parks, was established in 2019 as a subsidiary of the Saudi Entertainment Commission. Its mandate extends beyond domestic operations: the company has signaled interest in exporting Saudi-developed entertainment formats and investment models to international markets. A €6 billion commitment in one of the world’s most visited countries represents a decisive test of that export strategy, placing Saudi capital and creative IP at the centre of a European leisure landscape dominated for decades by American and domestic operators.
Implications for the Paris Metropolitan Area
For the Cergy-Pontoise commune and the wider Val-d’Oise department, the project implies a decade-long construction phase, substantial infrastructure upgrades to roads and transit links, and a permanent shift in the area’s economic profile from a commuter suburb to a destination node. The 22,000 jobs cited by the presidential office would be distributed across phases — construction trades during the build-out, followed by permanent roles in park operations, retail, food service, maintenance, and creative content production.
For France’s tourism ecosystem, the addition of three major parks in close proximity to an existing world-class destination raises questions of competition, complementary programming, and visitor-flow management that will require coordinated planning between national, regional, and municipal authorities. The manga-themed element, in particular, positions the new complex to capture a demographic segment — anime and manga enthusiasts — that has grown rapidly across Europe but currently lacks a dedicated large-scale attraction on the continent.
The deal, sealed at the highest levels of both governments, transforms a former theme-park site into what its backers intend as a continental-scale entertainment landmark, and it embeds Saudi capital more deeply than ever before in the economic fabric of western Europe.
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