Saudi Prince ‘to stay at his own Versailles’
SAUDI ARABIA’S Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is due to arrive in France today, where his host President Emmanuel Macron is under pressure to halt lucrative weapons sales to the oil-rich kingdom because of its bombing campaign in Yemen.
The two-day official visit comes after the prince’s weeks-long tour of the US, Britain and Egypt, where the prince has courted business leaders and signed many multimillion dollar deals.
The prince’s agenda for the visit to France has not been made public – apart from his dinner with Mr Macron on Tuesday – and there was specula- tion as to whether he would stay in a chateau he owns that has been dubbed the “world’s most expensive home”.
The property contains 10 bedroom suites, a grand reception room with a 52ft-high frescoed dome ceiling, a library, a wine cellar with space for 3,000 bottles, and a “meditation room”.
The buyer was not identified at the time, but the New York Times reported last December that the purchaser was the Crown Prince Mohammed – known colloquially as MBS.
Mr Macron treads a delicate line as he hosts the 32-year-old Saudi king-inwaiting during the visit that is expected to focus on cultural ties and investments, as well as the war in Yemen, which has killed 10,000 people.
A YouGov opinion poll last month showed that three out of four French believe it was “unacceptable” to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia because of the kingdom’s actions in Yemen.