French man arrested for street robbery in Vietnam’s 'Little Paris'

Police in the Central Highlands resort town of Da Lat  have detained a French man accused of robbing a local on the street last week.

Matthieu Simon , 21, was arrested on Friday night last week as he was attempting to flee the scene, Thanh Nien (Young People) newspaper reported.

The victim was a 73-year-old Vietnamese man who had his smart phone, tablet and cash worth $27 snatched.

Simon said he had arrived in Vietnam from neighboring Cambodia.

Da Lat, the tourist center of Lam Dong Province, is one of the most popular destinations in Vietnam.

Standing 1,500 meters (4,921 feet) above sea level, Da Lat provides a cool respite from Vietnam’s year-round heat. The former colonial resort town has been given various nicknames such as the City of Eternal Spring, the City of Flowers, the City of Love and Little Paris.

Popular travel booking site TripAdvisor named it among the top 10 rising destinations in Asia for 2017.

The New York Times also recommended Da Lat among its 52 places to visit in 2016, describing it as “an agricultural El Dorado” with unique scenes of pine forests, locally grown avocados and artichoke tea.

Da Lat received more than 270,000 foreign visitors in 2016. Arrivals in the first six months of this year increased 44.3 percent on-year to more than 204,000.