Britain and its government has a well deserved reputation for kow-towing to foreign investors. But even they (one hopes) would draw a line at allowing a Middle East state to set up shop in the Royal Hospital Chelsea. In France, however, Emmanuel Macron’s government is studying a request from Saudi Arabia to erect its Olympic village in the Invalides during the Paris Olympics this summer.

The site is sacred for the French military. As well as housing the country’s national army museum, it is the site of the Institution Nationale des Invalides, the equivalent of the Royal Hospital in Chelsea, and is also home to a necropolis containing the tomb of Napoleon.

Macron is not a president averse to doing business with whoever opens their cheque book

When he was asked about the likelihood of the Saudis installing themselves in the Invalides for the duration of the Olympics, Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu replied that a decision had not yet been taken. He declared, however that in initial talks that ‘Saudi Arabia has agreed to respect the security and funding measures of Les Invalides’.

That’s nice of them, the cynic might mutter, but Lecornu hinted that their request will get the go-ahead. Riyadh was an ‘important defence partner’, he said, asking the media ‘for a sympathetic approach to the Saudi request, which could lead to benefactors’.

Macron is not a president averse to doing business with whoever opens their cheque book. He was the first Western leader to welcome Mohammed bin Salman back into the fold, after his brief spell on the naughty step for allegedly ordering the murder and dismemberment of a dissident journalist. Just last week he proudly announced a €10 billion (£8.6 billion) trade deal with the Hamas-friendly state of Qatar, mere months after the terrorist organisation had murdered 42 French citizens in Israel. So why should selling the country’s military soul be a problem?

The news has enraged the centre-right Republican party, which likes to think of itself as the party of the military top brass. They’ve pointed out that were the Saudis permitted to turn the Invalides into a base camp, the hullabaloo would likely have a deleterious effect on its residents, some of whom are undergoing rehabilitation for injuries sustained in the service of their country.

Patricia Mirallès, the Secretary of State for Veterans, was asked about the story in parliament last week and her vague response suggested this was a matter being decided at the very top. ‘I’m going to try to answer on the basis of what I know…information that we have been able to obtain,’ she said. ‘Today, nothing is concrete, nothing has been done.’

In response, Republican MP Nathalie Serre accused the government of putting the ‘values of the Republic’ up for sale. The fact it was the Saudis made it even more repugnant. ‘Saudi Arabia poses a specific problem in terms of respect for human rights,’ said Serre. ‘But if it had been a Danish or Canadian village, the problem would have been the same.’

‘Values’ have been a recurring theme of Macron’s presidency, a word he often bandies about in his speeches. In one address in 2020 he declared that ‘the Republic begins long before the Republic itself, because its values are rooted in our history’. Evidently those roots aren’t too deep to rip up if the price is right.