Napoléon, bientôt vedette d'un parc à thème ?

20 Minutes a écrit:Napoléon aura-t-il son parc d'attraction?

LOISIRS - Le maire de Montereau voudrait créer un nouveau parc d'attraction...

Le nouveau retour d'exil de Napoléon passera-t-il par les montagnes russes? C'est en tout cas le vœu formulé samedi par le député-maire (UMP) de Montereau-Fault-Yonne, en Seine-et-Marne, Yves Jégo, désireux de bâtir un parc de loisirs dédié à l'empereur. Où le visiteur redécouvrirait les reconstitutions de Waterloo ou d'Austerlitz entre deux tours de grand huit ou de manèges fantômes. Avant de partager, 3D oblige, les souffrances des soldats français en pleine Bérézina, d'apercevoir au loin les pyramides d'Egypte ou de revivre Trafalgar depuis un aquarium. Le tout sur une centaine d'hectares.

S'inspirer du Puy-du-Fou

A mi-chemin entre le château de Fontainebleau, haut lieu napoléonien, et Eurodisney, Montereau est aussi l'une des dernières joies militaires de l'empereur. De quoi, selon l'édile, asseoir la légitimité du futur site.

Inspiré par le succès du Puy-du-Fou, il veut saisir l'opportunité économique: «Le sud Seine-et-Marne est le grand oublié du Grand Paris. Alors pour la croissance de la région, la marque Napoléon me semble un formidable levier. A la fois porteuse d'une image connue dans le monde entier et pourvoyeuse d'emplois. L'ambition, c'est d'y recevoir chaque année près de 2 millions de visiteurs du monde entier, chinois et russes en tête.» S'il est porté à son terme, le projet pourrait ainsi générer 2 à 3.000 emplois - directs et indirects - et la construction d'une gare TGV, à une demi-heure de la gare de Lyon.

Reste désormais à trouver les 250 millions d'euros nécessaires à la construction de ce Napoléonland. Car si le dessein a reçu le soutien de l'Etat, il devra être principalement financé par des fonds privés. Yves Jégo s'est donné 18 mois pour convaincre partenaires, français et étrangers, chinois ou qataris notamment. Et espère une ouverture en 2017. D'ici là, la polémique naissante autour d'un parc consacré à un personnage controversé promet de grandir. «Il s'agit ni de le glorifier, ni de l'abattre», se défend Yves Jégo. «On fera de ce parc le portrait d'une époque et non d'un seul homme», assure pour sa part Jacques-Olivier Boudon, président de l'Institut Napoléon, qui pilotera un comité d'expert supervisant le projet pédagogique. Et veiller à ce qu'aucune des parts d'ombre de Bonaparte (rétablissement , régime tyrannique, conquêtes sanglantes…) ne soit oubliée.

Julien Descalles

Source: http://www.20minutes.fr/article/882905/napoleon-aura-t-il-parc-attraction

RTL a écrit:En Seine-et-Marne, le projet de "Napoléonland" irrite les Anglais

L'amiral Nelson va-t-il se retourner dans sa tombe ? La Seine-et-Marne pourrait accueillir d'ici 2017 un parc de loisirs entièrement dédié à Napoléon. Un projet estimé à 250 millions d'euros et qui se veut créateur de 3.000 emplois. "Depuis 15 ans, la ville célèbre la bataille de Montereau, dernière victoire de Napoléon face aux Autrichiens", remportée le 18 février 1814, au retour de la désastreuse retraite de Russie, explique Yves Jégo, député-maire PR de Montereau-Fault-Yonne, à l'initiative de cette idée. Mais les Anglais n'apprécient pas forcément ce projet. Il y a ceux pour qui Napoléon reste un personnage très controversé. Et puis il y a ceux qui se moquent de ce projet : le très sérieux Guardian vient d'ironiser sur ce parc qui sera construit à deux pas d'Eurodisney.

Napoléon, une "marque-monde"

Le nom provisoire du parc est pour le moment le "Bivouac de Napoléon". Ce rendez-vous "rassemble entre 15.000 et 20.000 personnes dans les rues", dont beaucoup en costumes d'époque, relève Yves Jégo.

"Nous avons l'histoire avec nous", insiste l'élu d'une ville qui accueille déjà une statue équestre de l'Empereur. Selon lui, Napoléon est une "marque-monde", un personnage "marquant pour l'humanité", connu d'Angleterre en Russie, qui peut faire venir "entre 1,5 et 2 millions de visiteurs par an", insiste-t-il.

Les meilleurs ennemis anglais vont certainement devoir se faire à l'idée, ne leur déplaise...


Ecouter Jean-Baptiste Durand | 20/02/2012 - 08h00

Depuis des semaines, les tabloids anglais se déchaînent contre ce projet de parc à la gloire de Napoléon

Source: http://www.rtl.fr/actualites/culture-loisirs/insolite/article/en-seine-et-marne-le-projet-de-napoleonland-irrite-les-anglais-7744010186

Quotidien du Tourisme a écrit:Un parc de loisirs consacré à Napoléon ? Les Anglais ricanent

Yves Jégo, député de Seine et Marne, aimerait créer dans son département d'un parc d'attraction consacré à Napoléon.

Le Napoléonland, qui pourrait voir le joue en 2017 en Seine-et-Marne, fait la joie des journaux britanniques. Le Daily Mail s'étonne que Nicolas Sarkozy, qui soutient le projet, "s'associe à un homme dont les actes ont conduit à la mort de millions de personnes". Avant de nous lancer une petite pique : "Un pays qui vénère encore en partie un tel homme a sûrement un problème". Yves Jégo, malgré ces ricanements, espère pouvoir quand même attirer quelque deux millions de visiteurs par an, Anglais compris. En effet, comme le pronostique le Daily Mail, ils se précipiteront dans le parc pour voir comment sont restituées les batailles de Waterloo et Trafalgar. L'humour britannique, sans doute.
LG, lundi 20 février 2012 (19h43)

Source: http://www.quotidiendutourisme.com/site/humeur-un-parc-de-loisirs-consacre-a-napoleon-les-anglais-ricanent-64811.html

Daily Mail a écrit:Sarkozy, a Napoleon theme park and the grand European delusions of this second rate nation

A former French minister is behind a
scheme to build a theme park in honour of Napoleon Bonaparte on the
outskirts of Paris. The plan has the support of President Nicolas
Sarkozy, once described as ‘Bonaparte in a suit’.

If the park dubbed ‘Napoleonland’ goes ahead, tourists may be able to
peruse a gigantic map showing the tyrant’s foreign conquests at his
zenith of his power — Italy, Spain, the Low Countries, much of
modern-day Germany and a sizeable chunk of Poland. In less than a decade
he assembled a European superstate — and then lost it.

Visitors may be able to go on a ride which will let them ‘experience’ his
unsuccessful Egyptian campaign, and re-enact the Battle of Trafalgar in
1805, when Nelson decisively prevailed over the French and Spanish
navies off the Spanish coast.





Deluded: Sarkozy, once described as 'Bonaparte in a suit', supports plans for the creation of a theme park in honour of Napoleon

Equally less enjoyable for
French tourists, there may also be a replay of the retreat from Moscow
during which tens of thousands of French soldiers perished in the
Russian snow and ice after Napoleon had catastrophically overreached
himself, as was to do when he invaded Russia almost precisely 129
years later.

To British eyes it may seem extraordinary that a French president should
associate himself in any way with a man whose actions led to the deaths
of millions of people — and whose defeat paved the way for British 19th
century supremacy, reducing France to the rank of a second-rate power
where, let us be honest, it has remained.



But then a lot of French
people continue to revere Napoleon, though there are as many who don’t.
Austerlitz station in Paris is named after his famous victory over the
Russian and Austrian armies in 1805, and the French capital is littered
with avenues and streets commemorating his generals, victories and
treaties.




Egotistical: Napoleon brought back slavery in 1802, eight years after the French Revolution had abolished it

To be fair, Napoleon initially did
some good things. After the ravages of Revolutionary France he restored
order, laying down a new civil code that still survives. He introduced
far-reaching educational reforms, re-established the Catholic Church and
endowed the marriage tie, which had been greatly weakened, with its
former significance.

On the other hand, he brought back slavery in 1802, eight years after the
Revolution had abolished it. In Haiti he was allegedly guilty of
genocide, gassing rebellious islanders. He also showed terrible cruelty
towards a potential claimant to the French throne, who was arrested and
summarily shot.

Above all, he embarked on nothing less than the conquest of Europe by force of
arms, installing relatives on various European thrones. His
megalomaniac Empire-building was only brought to a close at the Battle
of Waterloo, where the Duke of Wellington won a victory that changed the
course of history.

A country which can still partly revere such a man surely has a problem.
We would probably be wrong to equate Napoleon with 20th century
totalitarian monsters such as and Stalin, but he was nonetheless a
new sort of terrifying leader whose destructive will is memorably
described by Tolstoy in his monumental War And Peace.

If we were unfortunate enough to have a Napoleon Bonaparte lurking in our
past, I can’t imagine that many of us would smile on a plan to erect a
theme park in his name. Yves Jégo, the chief brain behind the scheme,
may simply be a misguided maverick, but the idea could not fly without
the support of President Sarkozy.

Mr Sarkozy announced his bid for re-election on French television last
night. He will certainly have his work cut out in the April vote, since
his main opponent, the socialist candidate, Francois Hollande, is well
ahead in the polls. The centre-right Mr Sarkozy could conceivably be
beaten by the far-right Marine Le Pen, though that seems unlikely.












Election: Sarkozy is trailing in polls, which place Francois Hollande (right) in the lead


In one sense it would be absurd to
compare ‘Sarko’ to Bonaparte. One is a democratically elected and
largely ineffectual president who will probably lose office after an
undistinguished five-year stint, and not be long remembered; the other
was a general who seized power, changed France, and dominated Europe for
a decade.

Look more
closely, though, and there are similarities. Both are outsiders — with
Napoleon hailing from Corsica, having very little, if any, French blood,
and Sarko being half-Hungarian, with Greek, Jewish and French blood on
his mother’s side.


There is a shared attraction for
beautiful women, though Napoleon seduced them on a more industrial
scale. They are of similar build. Napoleon was just over 5ft 6in tall;
Sarko measures up at 5ft 5in. The commentator who described him as
‘Bonaparte in a suit’ could as well have said he was ‘Bonaparte with
heels’.

Certainly Sarko conveys something of the same rather detestable bounciness and
self-confidence that one associates with Napoleon, though with far less
justice in view of his failure to deliver most of the changes he
promised before he was elected, as well as the decidedly rocky state of
the French economy.

And they share a vision of Europe, albeit from very different standpoints.
Napoleon briefly established a French Empire that held most of
continental Europe in its sway. President Sarkozy, the leader of a
colossally weaker France, has repeatedly defended the euro as the engine
of a new European superstate.

Last December, he said that Europe had to be ‘re-founded’ with France and
Germany at its centre to ensure ‘a zone of stability’. He has championed
political integration as being necessary for closer economic
convergence.

The price
he has paid is of being Germany’s junior partner with his strings
apparently being tugged by the German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The
French remain widely pro-EU, but Sarko’s obvious deference has not gone
down well with many French people.




Questions: We don't know where the 'Merkozy' project for a more integrated Europe will end up

His opponent Francois Hollande has
even said that he will tear up the treaty recently signed by all EU
countries except Britain and the Czech Republic which is designed to
increase political and economic convergence. The socialist challenger
believes the new treaty will obstruct his plans for higher spending.

We can’t yet know where the Merkel-Sarkozy project for a more integrated
Europe will end up, or whether Greece and other countries which are
being bullied by the Germans and French into ‘economic orthodoxy’ will
leave the eurozone. But it seems a good bet that Sarkozy’s vision of a
united Europe will unravel, as almost 200 years ago Bonaparte’s
admittedly very different version did.

As for Sarko himself, he may not be removed to St Helena in disgrace by
the British, as Napoleon was, but it looks as though he will soon have
to vacate the Elysee Palace. I don’t suppose anyone will ever think of
creating even a mini Sarkoland to remember him.

If Napoleonland is ever built, let it serve as a reminder to visitors of a
megalomaniac who brought suffering and death to Europe, and failed to
impose the European superstate of which his political descendants in
Paris and Berlin still dream.

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2101767/Nicolas-Sarkozy-Napoleon-theme-park-Frances-grand-European-delusions.html#ixzz1n0sqEC00