SEATED on a red velvet banquettes in the Brasserie de la Poste in Montargis, a modest provincial town south of Paris, is the Shanghai-born doctor Peiwen Wang, an expert in Chinese tourists’ tastes in France.

The special French menu for Chinese visitors begins with an aperitif of cider and local honey. The starter is foie gras and salad, followed by duck. “The typical French cheese course has been omitted as the Chinese aren’t big cheese eaters,” Wang said.

France is the most popular European destination for Chinese tourists, with around 900,000 flocking there in 2011, a figure expected to quadruple in the next decade. Paris is the No 1 destination, with Chinese tourists on tightly scheduled coach tours often scrimping on accommodation and eating at Chinese self-service buffets to spend on products such as designer bags which are tax-free.

But about 60 miles south of Paris, the town of Montargis has become a must-see. It was here in 1910 to 1920 that hundreds of Chinese students came to study, including future leaders such as Deng Xiaoping and friends of Mao Zedong. Chinese history books recount that it was in a leafy Montargis park that the young Chinese students set out in a letter to Mao their first ideas for a Chinese communist party.

Wang, head of the China-Montargis friendship association, has lived in France for more than 20 years, and seven years ago set up guided tours.

The tour ranges from Hutchinson’s rubber factory, where Deng worked in the women’s shoes section as a 17-year-old, to the former public baths, via old dormitories and secret courtyards.

But time must be set aside for shopping. “Cosmetics and creams are more and more popular,” Wang said. “Before I started this, I didn’t know the Chinese word for Lancôme. I certainly do now.”— The Guardian, London