A French business that is planning to build a vast £600m historical theme park in rural Oxfordshire won help for its plans from the previous government despite its founding family’s ties to the far right and past praise of Vladimir Putin.
Correspondence obtained under freedom of information (FoI) laws showed the Conservative peer Dominic Johnson, a business and trade minister in Rishi Sunak’s government, promised to “assist” Puy du Fou – one of France’s most popular theme parks – in finding a UK site.
An unnamed UK official later said departmental staff based in France would be available to provide more help, while the company later described the government as having been “very supportive” of its plans.
The company subsequently unveiled proposals to build mock medieval castles, hotels and restaurants on farmland near the M40 in Oxfordshire.
The project has proved controversial, partly owing to objections from local people based on concerns about traffic, the demand on local water supplies and the potential environmental impact. In February, the Guardian revealed that some living in the area also had misgivings about the De Villiers family behind the business.
Puy du Fou’s founder, Philippe de Villiers, has been criticised for expressing far-right views, while his son Nicolas, who runs the business, appeared to praise Putin after the invasion of Crimea in 2014.
The company said many of the objections to its park were based on “conspiracy theory mischief making” by local opponents of the plan and that it had passed a government due diligence process “with ease”.
A heavily redacted cache of emails obtained under FoI law show that in December 2022, Lord Johnson of Lainston – then a minister at the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) – met representatives of Puy du Fou.
He told them he had asked the Office for Investment to contact the company to discuss “how we may assist you in site selection”. The peer also asked to be kept informed of “the outcomes we deliver”.
In a subsequent letter, in June last year, an unnamed government official told Puy du Fou: “My DBT colleagues in France are on hand to support you with your UK project,” but added that Johnson could no longer discuss policy because a general election had been called.
This year, after the Guardian published details of the De Villiers family’s links to the far right and apparent praise of Putin, Puy du Fou met Labour MP Chris Bryant, who was then a minister at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.
Bryant raised concerns about the issues mentioned in the Guardian’s reporting, the emails showed.
A readout of the meeting showed that Puy du Fou considered the government had been “very supportive” and asked for this support to be relayed to the local authorities – Cherwell district and Oxfordshire county council.
A DBT spokesperson declined to comment on whether ministers had spoken to the two councils, but said officials were “reassured” that Puy du Fou no longer had ties to Russia and signalled continued support for the park, saying it represented “a substantial investment in our visitor economy” that would create jobs and drive growth.
Philippe de Villiers, a scion of an aristocratic family, conceived Puy du Fou in the 1970s after discovering a ruined Renaissance castle in western France. It has since grown into one of the country’s most popular tourist attractions and the company also has a park in Toledo, Spain. The company formally submitted a planning application for the Oxfordshire site in August.
It has won support from fans in Britain, some of whom have set up a group called We Want Puy du Fou UK. But some local people have raised concerns about the project’s impact on the area, as well as the family behind it.
De Villiers, a well-known rightwing politician, founded a party whose manifesto included a ban on the construction of new mosques and a prohibition on gay marriage and same-sex adoption.
He still has a weekly political television show in France on which he regularly rails against immigration and Islam. In January, he attended the funeral of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of the far-right party now known as National Rally.
Guests included De Villiers’ longtime associate, the far-right presidential candidate Éric Zemmour, who was found guilty of hate speech in 2022 after a tirade against unaccompanied immigrant children, whom he described as thieves, rapists and murderers.
“What he defends is what I live for,” De Villiers said shortly after Zemmour made the remarks. De Villiers is no longer involved in management of the Puy du Fou company.
In 2014, his son Nicolas de Villiers, who now runs the business, appeared to defend Putin over Russia’s invasion of Crimea after visiting Moscow to discuss plans for two theme parks under the brand Tsargrad, including one planned for the peninsula.
Puy du Fou’s local investment partner would have been Konstantin Malofeyev, a billionaire oligarch who was already under US, UK and EU sanctions because of his financing of Russia-friendly separatists in Ukraine.
In an interview in the trade publication Attractions Management in 2015, Nicolas de Villiers described Putin as having “sweet eyes and sweet words” and claimed the international community had misunderstood the Russian president.
De Villiers said sanctions would not affect plans to build a Crimean park, and Malofeyev was a man of “great moral power”.
Puy du Fou said: “There simply is no issue here, as much as the local objectors would like to create one … Puy du Fou ceased all contact with Russian authorities and their representatives in 2014.”
It said local opponents of the plans for a park in Oxfordshire had been spreading “conspiracy theories”, adding that it was right that the UK government was trying to “help foreign investors invest in the UK, delivering much needed growth and new employment”.
The company said it had not provided support to We Want Puy du Fou UK but had met some of its members and hosted them at its French park. It said opponents of the park had declined the same invitation.
