Cergy-Pontoise (France) (AFP) – “A kid's whim” of Emmanuel Macron and the Saudi crown prince, a “useless and harmful” megaproject for the Paris region: dozens of environmental defenders mobilized on Sunday in Cergy against the amusement park project, including one on the manga universe, in Val-d'Oise.
Published on: 08/11/2026 - 21:38 Modified on: 08/11/2026 - 22:00
At the end of August, French President Emmanuel Macron and Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced the construction of three theme parks in Cergy-Pontoise, 35 kilometers northwest of Paris, for an investment of 6 billion euros.
This project “was born from a discussion” between the two men in December 2024 in Riyadh, when they discovered their “common passion” for manga “and in particular Dragon Ball Z”, explained an advisor to the president.
“I don’t see what manga are doing in land planning,” jokes this Sunday an environmental activist, Bernard Lou, who sees it more as “a kid’s whim.”
The tireless octogenarian participates in leading information workshops on the megaproject for a few dozen people who, braving the cold, gathered on the square in front of the Cergy-Préfecture station. And he distils his advice for the fight, drawn from the experience of activists from Notre-Dame-des-Landes (Loire-Atlantique) against an airport project.
The park potentially dedicated to Dragon Ball would be built on the site of the old Mirapolis park in Val-d'Oise, closed 35 years ago, with its enormous Gargantua.
Bernard Lou chairs the Collective for the Triangle de Gonesse, which in 2019 obtained the abandonment of the Europacity project, a mega-complex of shops and leisure in the east of the department.
“We have the impression that, given that they did not succeed in Europacity, they are trying to put together another project, a bit of this nature,” says Alicia Delvig, co-founder of the “Mirapolis aux inhabitants” collective.
A project that is “useless and harmful for land use planning”, according to the 26-year-old young woman who works in real estate.
“We are coming out of a scorching summer and today we are going to bring in thousands more tourists and artificialize land. It’s completely anachronistic,” judges this former campaign director of an LFI candidate in the last municipal elections.
“Tote”
On the ground, several people are busy drawing signs on which we can read "Biodiversity, no precariousness", or even "Farmers, not roller coasters (roller coasters, in English, Editor's note)".
“When we live so close, we worry about what they are going to do,” says a resident of Marines, a small town in Vexin, who came with her daughter and grandson.
“There was no consultation with the residents,” denounces Maxime Tranier, 27, looking for work, particularly worried about transport. “It’s going to be super difficult,” he predicts.
“I really have the impression of being taken for an imbecile,” adds Franck Clavaud, 51, cultural mediator. Living in an HLM in Courdimanche, a few hundred meters from the area to be developed, he fears the nuisance and environmental impact.
“Once we have destroyed natural spaces, we cannot go back,” he warns as posters are displayed in the square recalling the species that live in the area, such as the blue tit or the laughing frog.
The concern is all the more palpable among opponents of the project as the vagueness surrounds it.
If a theme park dedicated to the Dragon Ball universe had been mentioned by the press, even before the official announcement, manga was then discussed more generally.
“We are now talking about +integrated destination+”, announces Vincent Gayrard, member of Friends of the Earth, who, like the rest of the audience, does not quite understand what that means.
“It’s a catch-all thing, we don’t know what to put in it, but we have to build!”, he denounces, deploring the vision of those who think that “nature abhors a vacuum”.
© 2026 AFP
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