in season 7 (I think) of top gear they drove supercars across France to visit this - Jeremy said something like "french president said at the opening 'that this was a magnificient feat of French engineering' with a ....British engineer".
Bloody spectacular.
I can (and hopefully you can too) watch the clip here:
http://topgear.sbs.com.au/Video.aspx
Note that the interface is a bit funny - you click on episode to "watch video" then you have to re-select it again.