French Grumble Over Disney Pacts : Not Getting Share of EuroDisneyland Work, Firms Claim

As work begins on Europe’s first Disneyland leisure park outside Paris, disgruntled French firms are complaining that Mickey Mouse is gobbling up lucrative contracts and not offering locals a fair share of the cheese.

Work began at the site of EuroDisneyland, 20 miles east of Paris, on Aug. 1. The project is the result of a 3 1/2-year battle during which the French capital initially vied with the Spanish city of Barcelona.

But French interest groups have been grumbling that they are not getting a big enough share of lucrative hotel construction and management contracts. A separate dispute is simmering over rail transportation links.

Financing for the first phase of the $7.14-billion project also at first ran into problems with French banks, banking sources said.

The loan problems were solved only after Disney’s parent company brought its full weight to bear in the negotiations.

Under headlines which read, “Disneyland: the Big Bad Look,” “Mickey Scoffs the Lot” and “Mickey Mouse Has the Munchies,” Paris newspapers said recently that the plum Disney contract--a commercial complex with 5,200 hotel rooms, shops and offices--is to be kept by the Burbank-based firm’s in-house builders.

A spokesman for the parent firm confirmed that Mickey’s creators retained all rights to hotel construction at the Paris site but refused to comment on the dispute.

Maurice Rietsch, director of a Paris-based firm grouping major European building and hotel companies, said there had been little motivation for other commercial groups to become involved in Florida, where Disney built on empty woods and swamps.

“But here in France there is lively competition between a lot of firms that want a share in the project,” Rietsch said. “I would say it would not be prudent for Disney to go about building here like it did at DisneyWorld in Orlando, where it kept all the work to itself.”

The satirical French weekly newspaper Le Canard Enchaine also said that talks between Disney and French state railways SNCF have been deadlocked for 10 months in a dispute over the construction of passenger rail links to the theme park.

Disney subsidiary EuroDisneyland, set up to build and manage the project, wants France’s state-of-the art TGV bullet trains to stop at a custom-built station next to the park. The SNCF is demanding in return that Disney contribute to building costs and guarantee minimum passenger levels.

To try to resolve some of the conflicts and to request that more contracts be given to French companies, French Prime Minister Michel Rocard met Disney Chairman and Chief Executive Michael D. Eisner for talks in July.

Spokesmen for Rocard could not be reached for comment on the affair. Disney has forbidden officials of EuroDisneyland to speak to reporters.

“Between the announcement and the opening is the time there is the least news. It’s all just very hard work at the moment,” said a Disney spokesman in Burbank.

An SNCF spokesman confirmed that the complexity of the rail transportation deal was prolonging negotiations. “Talks are going on and . . . there is plenty of time before 1992 to get the station under way once we have agreed to suitable terms with Disney,” he said.

Over 30 years, investment in EuroDisneyland could put it on par with the massive Channel tunnel project to link France and Britain. Initial financing for construction by 1992 is $2.2 billion.

Nervous banks missed a March 10 deadline to submit financing plans and were persuaded to join the deal only after Disney flew a group of French financiers to Orlando, banking sources said.

Seven banks led by state-owned Banque Nationale de Paris agreed to extend $1.27 billion in loans. An additional $952 million of equity capital is expected to be found by year-end.