In Saint-Denis, a 170-million-euro investment intended to build a French cinematic hub on the site of a former power plant ultimately morphed into a giant dining hall for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Now, a confidential report from France’s Cour des comptes has triggered a preliminary investigation by the Paris parquet into suspected public fund misappropriation and circular financial engineering.
From Hollywood-sur-Seine to a Public Real Estate Quagmire
The vision was grand: construct a massive European rival to Cinecittà and Pinewood, dubbed a French Hollywood along the Seine. Back in 2008, a complex financial arrangement came together to make it happen, relying heavily on state-backed capital via the Caisse des dépôts. Out of the total 170 million euros injected into the site, 140 million euros went strictly toward purchasing the land. That acreage was held entirely by Nef-Lumière, a company where the Caisse des dépôts held a 75 percent stake alongside Vinci’s 25 percent.
The remaining 30 million euros built out the physical soundstages through various entities connected to Luc Besson and Tarak Ben Ammar’s Quinta communications group. The resulting Cité du Cinéma spans 62,000 m2. It houses nine distinct shooting stages, office buildings, set-construction workshops, a screening room, and teaching spaces for the public École nationale supérieure Louis-Lumière. But it was this exact integration of a public school into a state-funded structure that first raised eyebrows among financial magistrates.
Financial Scrutiny and the Cour des comptes Investigation
State-backed projects tied to high-profile figures inevitably draw close oversight. The situation shifted from a lagging commercial venture to a judicial matter when a confidential note from the Cour des comptes reached the justice system. The documents pointed to suspected diversions of public funds tied to the construction and operation phases of the complex. The inquiry also examined close ties between Luc Besson and his collaborators and top state officials of that era, including Nicolas Sarkozy and Claude Guéant.
In response to reporting by Le Parisien regarding these matters, Besson’s production company, EuropaCorp, launched a defamation suit against the publication over what it characterized as false and misleading claims. Meanwhile, investigators focused heavily on the mechanics of the project’s real estate loops. As noted by the Cour des comptes, the arrangement involving the public Louis-Lumière school paying to occupy spaces built with public money stood out as a prime example of circular state financing.
Commercial Struggles and the Olympic Pivot
Despite its physical scale, the cinematic ambitions for the site never hit sustained momentum. While international productions like Sony Pictures Animation’s “Smurfs 2” utilized the stages, the facility failed to generate the steady revenue needed to justify its massive backing. By February 2022, the financial reality of the venture became official when producer Tarak Ben Ammar acquired the Studios de Paris for roughly 35 million dollars—a fraction of the original 170 million euro outlay.
The 2024 Paris Olympic Games provided an unexpected operational pivot. Stripping away the struggling film ecosystem, the massive industrial nave found a new temporary purpose as the central dining hall for athletes situated right beside the newly built Olympic village. Patrick Supiot, general real estate director for Vinci Immobilier—which owns the property alongside the Caisse des dépôts—assessed the site’s prior trajectory bluntly, stating, The Cité du Cinéma was an object not known to the inhabitants of Saint-Denis, which was bypassed on all sides and which never participated in the life of the city.
Following the conclusion of the games, the site is slated to open to the general public starting in 2026 as a cultural space hosting exhibitions, marking a definitive end to its chapter as an elusive cinematic dream funded by the public purse.
