alternatehistory.com

Planète Sauvage is a zoological park located at Port-Saint-Père, near Nantes in France. Founded in 1992 by Monique and Dany Laurent, the park covers about 80 hectares (200 acres) of land, where almost 1,000 animals of about 150 species live, and is a blend of a safari portion, visible by car, and a pedestrian part, which includes one of the three dolphinariums of metropolitan France, where bottlenose dolphins are presented.

But the park gained international coverage, and infamy, in 1994, when it tried to open a "African village" replica attraction. This would have been populated by native African men and women who, by contract, were required to be topless whenever the weather permitted. Sponsored by Biscuiterie Saint-Michel as part of the promotion for their "Bamboula" cookies (
), the Cote d'Ivoirian village was labeled "Bamboula Village" after the eponymous children's character; but a public outcry led to the cancellation of the project, as it was judged to come too close to being a "human zoo".

So then, what if the project hadn't been cancelled- let's say that the press doesn't pick up on the story in the planning or construction stages- and Planète Sauvage's Bamboula Village had instead opened for business? What kind of popular reaction would there have been to this incredibly controversial tourist attraction? And for the AHC, how could one plausibly keep both Planète Sauvage and its Bamboula Village attraction open all the way to the present day, with visitor numbers equal to, or higher than, the park's visitor numbers of 200,000>320,000 per annum today?
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