(ANSAmed) - PARIS, JUNE 22 - The mythical Martinez Hotel on the
Cannes Croisette has also passed into Qatari hands: and so the
love (and money) story of the rich Gulf emirate and the beauties
of France continues. Qatar now owns Paris' favourite football
club, Paris Saint Germain, and holds a stake in several
blue-chip names in French business such as Total. This latest
purchase, which has been revealed today, involves the two
prestigious grand hotels: the Martinez in Cannes and Paris'
Concorde Lafayette at Porte Maillot.
The first building, an art-deco piece that went up on the Cannes
seafront in 1927 is one of the most favoured hotels by
world-class stars as they arrive in Cannes each year for the
festival of cinema. The second is a 33-storey skyscraper that
rises 137 metres into the clouds above Paris, whose entrance is
next to the large Port Maillot Congress Centre in the west of
the city. The preliminary agreement has been signed with the US
hotel group Starwood Capital. The name of the deep-pocketed
investor remains a mystery for the present but some sources are
speaking of Katara Hospitality, the owner and manager of
serveral luxury hotels in the Emirates and worldwide including
the Peninsula, due to open in 2013 in Paris' Avenue Kleber. But
these two prime properties are not the only French luxury hotels
in Qatari hands. There is the Royal Monceau in Paris, near the
Arc de Triumph and in Cannes the Carlton has a Qatari owner.
The Gulf Emirates recent shopping spree for French football
clubs has seen them basketing PSG, the Paris club, as well as
the television rights for Ligue 1 through the company BeIn, as
sports-specialised French subsidiary of Al-Jazeera. In the
French manufacturing sector, Qatar holds 2% of oil group Total;
5.6% of construction company Vinci; 5% of services group Veolia
Environnement and 7.5% of aeronautics constructor EADS.
Recently, Qatar has also been buying its way into the Lagardere
publishing and multimedia group (10.1%) and have launched a
campaign to upgrade Paris' banlieue with a 50-million-euro
project financing scheme. Emir Hamad ben
Khalifa Al-Thani was greeted with kisses and embraces by
President Nicolas Sarkozy on his visit to the Elysee Palace and
according to a survey by Slate.fr, Mr Al-Thani owns a huge 4,000
metre slice of the Parisian Marne-la-Coquette region.(ANSAMED).
