TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/032591/0325200.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 8.4 KB | 178 lines

                                                                                BUSINESS, Page 48

Monsieur Mickey


Euro Disneyland is on schedule, but with a distinct French
accent

By BARBARA RUDOLPH -- Reported by Edward M. Gomez/Paris


    No people can match the French when it comes to fierce
protection of their culture -- except perhaps the people from
the Walt Disney Co. Children everywhere know Mickey Mouse,
Donald Duck and the dozens of other goofy characters that make
up the Disney pantheon. With a meticulosity that is a hallmark
of their success, Disney executives protect and promote their
patented image. But as construction proceeds on Euro
Disneyland, which is scheduled to open outside Paris next
spring, the French have begun to ask themselves how the presence
of Disney's irresistibly American village will affect French
culture. Many fear that the theme park will corrupt France's
prized national identity by creating what one Parisian theater
director predicts will be a "cultural Chernobyl."

    To allay those fears, some language purists in the French
government have been going all out in recent weeks to make the
project seem as French as it can be. As a result, Mickey and
Donald are developing French accents. Paris, for example, is
lobbying for French names on attractions and rides, "pommes
frites" instead of "French fries" on restaurant menus. Thus the
centerpiece of every Disney park -- the fairy tale castle --
will be known at Euro Disneyland as Le Chateau de la Belle au
Bois Dormant (although a hot dog will still be a hot dog).

    The skirmishes are instructive examples of the resistance
that American pop culture meets from intellectuals in some of
the countries where it is consumed most avidly by mass
audiences, but in the overall scheme of things, they are minor.
Euro Disneyland is a $4.2 billion project, now nearly six years
in the making. No one doubts that Mickey Mouse and his clan
will claim their new home on the Continent, probably close to
the April 1992 target date. Disney executives predict 11
million visits a year to the theme park, which is being built
on former beet and sunflower fields in the suburban development
of Marne-La-Vallee, 20 miles east of the capital. Last year 50
million tourists visited France, spending more than $21
billion; many of those tourists are likely to stop by the new
Disneyland.

    For its latest venture, Disney is orchestrating its usual
mix of hoopla and down-home family fun. Euro Disneyland will
feature an amusement park with 29 attractions, and six hotels
with 5,200 rooms designed by such top architects as Michael
Graves and Robert A.M. Stern. There will also be a 138-acre
Davy Crockett campground and an 18-hole golf course, not to
mention 150,000 trees sprinkled over the Disneyscape.
Construction is more than halfway along. Among the park's
highlights: a 60-ft.-high Swiss Family Tree House and Disney's
trademark Big Thunder Mountain, a roller-coaster ride with Gold
Rush-era motifs.

    While it does not rain much at the Disney parks in
California and Florida, it certainly does in northern France.
Euro Disneyland's designers are building special covered
waiting areas for the comfort of visitors standing in line to
buy tickets, and will provide a variety of audiovisual
entertainment to help them pass the time.

    By 1995, Disney expects to spend an additional $3 billion
to build a convention center, a second golf course and several
more hotels with 13,000 rooms. The company also plans a
Disney-MGM movie studio and possibly a European science park
like Florida's Epcot Center.

    This is Disney's second venture outside the U.S. Eight years
ago, Japan's Disneyland opened in the Tokyo suburb of Urayasu;
for the fiscal year that ends this month, it should post
revenues of more than $1 billion. The Japanese Disneyland was
meant to be thoroughly American, though: most signs are in
English, and only one of the 30 restaurants serves Japanese
food.

    But for the French, injecting at least some European flavor
into the enterprise has become a cause celebre. Among the
European accommodations, signs will be bilingual, and possibly
multilingual, and plenty of French cuisine will accompany
American fast food. Disney officials like to point out that one
attraction, Discoveryland, is inspired in part by the works of
French science-fiction writer Jules Verne. Disney also agreed
that only its major attractions, such as Pirates of the
Caribbean and Adventureland, will be called by their English
name.

    The 500-page pact between the French government and the Walt
Disney Co. stipulates a 49% ownership stake in Euro Disneyland
for the U.S. firm, with the remaining 51% of the shares held
by investors. Euro Disneyland shares will be traded on the
Paris Bourse. Disney will retain operational control of the
facility. As part of the deal, the government is lending Disney
$920 million at a remarkably low  7.85% interest rate. Disney
has agreed to use European firms for 90% of its goods and
services, and will pay for various roads to be built near the
complex.

    For France, the payoff is plain: as many as 30,000 new jobs
will be created by Disney, and tourists will spend millions of
francs on French businesses as part of their travels to Euro
Disneyland. In the neighborhood of Marne-La-Vallee, 12,000
houses and apartments will be built, along with new schools and
stores. The tiny (pop. 925) village of Serris, many of whose
resident are elderly or retired, is bracing itself for the
arrival of Euro Disneyland nearby. Says Mayor Philippe Mancel:
"One realizes it's a lost cause to be against Euro Disneyland.
Once Disney starts paying taxes, on a per capita basis, Serris
will be one of the richest villages in France."

    Disney executives can expect to whistle while they work,
since the deal is already showing handsome returns. The firm
is putting up only $160 million in equity. Investors stepped
forward with an additional $1.2 billion, and banks and the
government lent $2.6 billion. When the gates open, Disney will
take 10% of admission revenues and 5% of food and merchandise
receipts. It will also receive 49% of all profits. Estimated
annual gross receipts for the first year: about $1.12 billion.

    On the subject of the French bureaucracy, Disney executives
sound decidedly less bullish. For example, when Disney
executives requested an extension of local water service to
their park area, they had to seek about a dozen official
approvals and clearances. To help navigate this sensitive
thicket, Disney hired local consultants familiar with the rules
of the game. Says Euro Disneyland president Robert Fitzpatrick:
"Form is very important in France, much more so than in the
U.S. You have to be sure you contact the right person and don't
overlook someone."

    For the moment, curiosity seekers at Euro Disneyland must
confine themselves to a preview center, where displays and
models of the coming attractions are on view, along with a
brief promotional film. At the souvenir shop next door, a
simple sweatshirt, silk-screened with a ring of European flags
encircling Mickey Mouse's face, sells for $39. A fast-food
restaurant specializes in Texas-style chili.

    In the coming months, Disney will be hiring more and more
employees, known in the corporate lingo as "cast members." They
will have to abide by the company's strict appearance codes:
men cannot have mustaches, beards or exposed tattoos, nor can
they wear jeans. Women cannot wear any obtrusive jewelry or
have "unusually colored" hair or long fingernails. "We're after
a conservative, professional look," says Disney vice president
Thorolf Degelmann. The company is looking for multilingual men
and women from all over Europe who will be able to communicate
with the non-French Europeans who are expected to visit the
park.

    French applicants will most likely oblige Disney's notions
of a clean-cut appearance. But will their acquiescence spell
the beginning of the end of French culture as we know it? Only
the most virulent cultural chauvinists think so. Says Christian
Cardon, head of the interministerial government delegation that
is supervising the Disney project: "French culture cannot be
threatened by Disney. Just because an amusement park will open,
university students are not going to stop studying Sartre."