France is in uproar over news that McDonald's has tainted the hallowed ground of the Louvre. The chain has confirmed that its 1,142nd French outlet will open next month in the underground approach to the art museum. The Parisian authorities haven't always capitulated to capitalist invaders, though. In 1993, they refused permission to put a McDonald's under the Eiffel Tower.

Other nations have resisted the powerful golden arches too. Italian designer Valentino led a charge to stop McDonald's setting up beside Rome's Spanish Steps (though there are now two branches within 150m). So where else in the world might tourists stumble on an unfortunately placed concession?

• After 580 years and 24 emperors, Beijing's Forbidden City got its first franchise in 2000 – a Starbucks. The shop's sign was taken down in 2005 after complaints but it took half a million petition signatures (led by a popular TV news anchor who claimed it was "eroding Chinese culture") before the franchise was removed in 2007. Still, this hasn't kept Starbucks away from China's Unesco Heritage Sites. In 2005, the Seattle-based coffee maker breached the Great Wall, setting up shop at the popular Badaling section.

• There is a McDonald's underneath the Museum of Communism in Prague. In fact, one visitor to the Czech capital posted on a website that the museum was advertising itself around the city with the tag, "We're above McDonald's, across from Benetton."

• You can contemplate Egypt's Great Pyramid through the window of a Pizza Hut (pictured above). Where is it located? Right on top of a KFC.

• Not content with 31,000 outlets worldwide, McDonald's is still on the march. In September 2008, the burger chain opened a restaurant in Peru on Cusco's Plaza de Armas, named by the Project for Public Spaces as one of the 60 great places in the world. McDonald's made one concession for the sake of cultural preservation, replacing its neon yellow M with a more discreet brown one.