I am writing to you from an island floating in the lands east of Paris at the extreme edge of the new town of Marne-la-Vallée. When traveling to this island by car, the sudden change from the highway’s rickety trees and stripped embankments to mounds of lush grasses signals your arrival in a difierent world. It is obvious that the area has been carefully if not obsessively landscaped. About 100 meters ahead, the remote spire of a medievalistic construction indicates the highest point of the island: Sleeping Beauty's Castle.
Approaching Roissy by plane from the southeast, you see a large circle cut in the suburban landscape, in the middle of which, are traced two other circles (an allusion to Mickey Mouse's ears ?): one for the Magic Kingdom, inaugurated April 11, 1992, and one for a theme park devoted to cinema scheduled to open in 1996.
Insulated by the landscaping of its 2,000 hectares (5,000 acres), EuroDisney is truly a treasure island for its promoters, due to generous financial concessions ($500 million,) and regulations granted by successive French administrations. The park benefited from the extension of the express Métro (RER) and from a station installed at the center of the large circle; by 1994 it will also be served by the high-speed TGV, connected to Roissy Airport and all of Western Europe. The generosity of Laurent Fabius's socialist government, which Jacques Chirac’s conservative government never contradicted, allowed Disney to acquire a large area around the park at rock-bottom prices; the land then appreciated in value as a result of the new infrastructure required. Moreover, fiscal deductions on the turnover of shares in the park were limited, and laws governing employee hours and benefits were favorably arranged.
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