It's obviously very heavily inspired by France, but it's definitely not a clone of it. Which is a good thing, as I wouldn't really want to walk through France in a Pokémon game (I mean it sounds kind of cool, but it kind of takes the fantasy element out of it for me). I don't think the cloud is supposed to be hiding anything though, it kind of just looks like a pretty normal cloud pattern for a snowy area (I mean, it DOES need clouds to snow).