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Now, French city of Lyon comes to Dubai

DUBAI — Dubai plans to replicate the French city of Lyon in its very own backyard and hopes to have its share of French bistros, cafes, museums, cinemas and schools. The city, to be called the Lyon-Dubai City, will aim to reproduce, in the desert of Dubai, the style and quality of life as in Lyon.

One of its kinds, the new city will be equipped with a football training school, hotel school and a film school.

It’s also expected to have public squares, restaurants, outdoor cafes and museums.

Dubai-based Emirates Investment and Development Company PSC (Emivest), a Dubai-based capital investment organisation, signed an agreement with the city’s officials earlier this week for the establishment of this city in Dubai. Butti Saeed Al Ghandi, chairman of Emivest, told Khaleej Times, “Our latest project is the formation of a French style district in the heart of Dubai, inspired by Lyon. Emivest plans this unprecedented project with the aim of creating a city within a city. This will be done with the positioning of satellites of higher educational institutions such as Universite Lumiere Lyon 2, Olympique Lyonnais Football Club, EM Lyon, Institut Lumiere, Institut Paul Bocuse and also le Musee des Tissus and other cultural institutions of Lyon.”

However, Emivest officials remained tight-lipped on where the city would come up or when it would be complete.

Lyon-Dubai City will have the French touch of architecture, design and infrastructure, which will be managed by French experts, including John Paul Lebas, a planner of international repute. Olympique Lyonnais is currently in negotiations for the creation of a football training school, while Paul Bocuse Institute plans to initiate the establishment of a hotel school, with the additional possibility of a film school from Institut Lumiere, and Musee des Tissus plans to provide a platform for the exhibition of works.

In November last year, Canadian University of Dubai (CUD), a full subsidiary of Emivest, signed an agreement with Universite Lumiere Lyon 2 in France to initiate exchange programmes and to promote academic and research interactions for industry-centric knowledge and skills enhancement.