The mini Paris of China | M6 | 66 minutes

In the middle of China, in a suburb of Hangzhou, a city in the south of the country, a property developer had a crazy idea: build a mini Paris in the heart of a new city where he hopes to attract 100,000 people.Tree-lined avenues, squares with magnificent fountains, Hausmannian buildings complete with gargoyles and moldings, an Eiffel Tower, a Champs-Elysées. The reason the developer chose to copy Paris is because the “city of light” is a dream city for the Chinese.There’s still plenty of property for sale because, even though the apartments cost only a third of those in the city, most of the buyers have to run into debt to buy one.These customers are buying a dream and don’t pay much attention to detail: instead of dressed stone, there’s concrete with stone facing; instead of slate, there’s synthetic material; laundry hangs from the windows and air-conditioning units make the facades look drab.And the developer is looking beyond Paris: to attract tourists, he’s created French style gardens, Versailles fashion, and even a little Burgundy style village where you can eat in a replica of a famous Parisian restaurant, Maxim’s.