France: Back in 1992, 21-year-old Mourad Adli won a pop-corn vendor job at the brand new Disney resort near Paris. Now, as the theme park turns 20, the jovial Algerian runs all 60 of its restaurants - a poster boy for the firm's equal opportunities mantra.
Mickey Mouse met with fierce resistance when Disney first set sights on the land of Asterix, with one French intellectual decrying the planned theme park as a "Cultural Chernobyl" - a tag it took years to shake off.
Today Disneyland Paris is part of the landscape: the biggest single tourist draw in Europe, some 250 million people have passed through its fairytale gates in its first two decades, which it marks on April 12.
But the park, which sprang up on bare land east of the French capital, is an American island in France in more ways than one, not least its much-touted focus on searching out talent to promote from within.
"American companies don't care if you have exactly the right profile for the job - we look first and foremost at potential," Disneyland Paris' chief executive Philippe Gas told AFP.
Which university a French person attended while young continues to matter all the way through their professional life, to an extent unheard of in the Anglo-American world, where job experience counts for more.
Many of France's top managers graduate from one of the country's elite "grandes ecoles", whose intake is overwhelmingly tipped in favour of the mainly white middle and upper classes.
At Disney's Paris resort, 80 per cent of managers rose from within its ranks, a highly diverse workforce of 14,500 people, or "Cast Members" as they are known by Disney, of 100 nationalities speaking 20 languages.
And the firm makes a point of being colour-blind in its hiring, in a country where black and Arab youths remain hard hit by unemployment, which can soar to 40 per cent in the most deprived areas.
Born in a tiny village in Algeria's mountainous Kabylie, 40-year-old Adli is a case study in social mobility, appointed director of the park's restaurants in 1998.
He hopes to move on to California, or Shanghai where work has just begun on a new resort. "Whatever my roots, my country or my postcode, here it doesn't matter," said Adli, who grew up in Montfermeil, one of the towns where the French suburb riots first erupted in 2005 fuelled by anger at the lack of jobs. "That's why I stayed," said the father of two, who met his wife at Disney.
'Because of where they come from they can't get a job'
Eighty of Disneyland Paris' current staff came via one of three outreach schemes it backs in the region.
The park's chief executive sits on the board of one of them, which specialises in helping youths from tough areas, who often struggle to find a job despite four or five years of higher education. Gas mentors two young women in the company.
"They spent four years sending out CVs without a single response," he told AFP. "Because of where they come from they can't get a job," he said. "These are young people who have worked hard, often harder than others - but they just aren't able to convince employers, even to get interviews."
Since opening, Disneyland Paris has created 55,000 jobs directly and indirectly, generating an estimated 50 billion euros for the French economy, according to a government report released last month.
Its early years were marred by lower-than-expected visitors, driving it deep into debt, but it now says it is on course to pay off its debt by 2024.
Spurred by Disney's impact, the nearby town of Bailly Romainvilliers has mushroomed from 600 inhabitants in 1990 to 6,000 today. The town's young mayor Arnaud de Belenet says the resort has been an "economic engine" - but he is more nuanced on the job opportunities it offers.
"It's true they have these social ladder policies," he told AFP. "But a lot of the jobs are barely above minimum wage, which is not at all what local people are looking for." The French sociologist Sophie Bernard also cautions that big corporations can use internal promotion as a mirage "to keep workers motivated, when only a very small number actually stand to benefit."
And trade unionists at the firm complain of the irregular work hours at the park and its low average wages. That said, the government admits France has a social mobility problem and set up a task-force in January after research showed it was becoming ever harder for poor children to access higher education and top jobs.
Research from the education ministry suggest the life-long impact of a person's social origin is twice as important in France than in Canada or Japan, with only 15 per cent of working-class children obtaining a college degree.
