“
I am the king of the world!
», Yelled Leonardo DiCaprio, perched on the bow of the Titanic, in the film of James Cameron.
Only the kings of the world today, the Chinese, seem capable of this madness: to revive the mythical liner Titanic, nearly 110 years after its sinking in the Atlantic.
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260 meters long like the original of the White Star Line, heavy 23,000 tons of steel, equipped with a steam engine, the ship, under construction for six years, is preparing to welcome its passengers at the end of the year. Except that cruise passengers who will spend 2,000 yuan (256 euros) for a night in a cabin reconstituted with all the details of the period will make a motionless trip. The Chinese Titanic indeed rests in a hold, along a river, in Suining in Sichuan, 1,000 kilometers from the nearest coast. Su Shaojun, the promoter of this future "Titanicland", is nonetheless convinced that it will attract 2 to 5 million tourists per year, he told AFP.
This project, titanic - necessarily - cost 10 billion yuan (1.2 billion euros). The global success of the film (1997) and Celine Dion's song had not spared the Middle Kingdom, and Su Shaojun dreams of inviting the stars to inaugurate his park, in the spotlight. In the meantime, French tourists, and why not Chinese when they return, can always relive, with more modesty but not without emotion, the atmosphere of the Titanic at the Cité de la mer in Cherbourg.