Throughout his journey to France to satisfy President Emmanuel Macron, Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is staying at a lavish chateau dubbed "the world's costliest house" when he bought it in 2015.
The Chateau Louis XIV in Louveciennes exterior Paris is a new-build mansion meant to imitate the extravagant luxurious of the close by Versailles Palace, as soon as the seat of the French royal household.
The 7,000-square-meter property was purchased by an undisclosed purchaser in 2015 for 275 million euros ($300 million on the time), main Fortune journal to name it "the world's costliest house."
Bin Salman, 36, was reported two years' later by The New York Instances to be the last word proprietor by way of a collection of shell corporations.
Native authorities officers confirmed to AFP that the controversial inheritor to the Saudi throne was staying on the property forward of his dinner with Macron in a while Thursday.
Reporters exterior the perimeter wall noticed safety personnel in fits guarding the doorway and a big police presence, together with half a dozen autos.
Macron and bin Salman have been set to satisfy on the extra modest Elysee presidential palace later Thursday for talks that critics in France view as inappropriate.
Bin Salman was judged by U.S. intelligence to have accredited the ugly homicide and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi within the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
However after 4 years as a world pariah, the prince is being courted by Western leaders once more as they urgently search recent vitality provides to switch misplaced Russian manufacturing.
In a twist of historical past, the Chateau Louis XIV was constructed by Khashoggi's cousin Emad Khashoggi who runs a luxurious property improvement enterprise in France.
The chateau includes a nightclub, a gold-leafed fountain, a cinema, in addition to an underwater glass chamber within the moat that resembles an enormous aquarium with white leather-based sofas.
Pictures on the web site of Emad Khashoggi's firm, Cogemad, additionally present a wine cellar, though alcohol is strictly prohibited in Saudi Arabia.
Chateau Louis XIV was in-built 2009 after a Nineteenth-century fort on the plot was bulldozed.
Bin Salman's extravagant spending since rising as the principle powerbroker in Saudi Arabia has repeatedly made headlines.
The son of King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud purchased a $500-million yacht in 2015 and was additionally reported to be the thriller purchaser of a $450-million Leonardo da Vinci portray in 2017.
The latter buy has been formally denied.
In an interview with 60 Minutes, Bin Salman mentioned he didn't have to apologize for an opulent life-style.
"I am a wealthy individual and never a poor individual. I am not Gandhi or [Nelson] Mandela," he mentioned. "I am a member of the ruling household that existed for a whole bunch of years earlier than the founding of Saudi Arabia."
He additionally mentioned that he spends a big portion of his wealth on charity.
"I spend no less than 51 % on individuals and 49 on myself," he mentioned.