FRENCH ANXIETY ABOUT INTERNATIONAL MUSEUM EXPANSION

Questions are being raised about plans to create a satellite of the Louvre in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, and to establish an outpost of the Pompidou Center in Shanghai, writes Alan Riding in the New York Times. Critics have accused President Jacques Chirac of using the country’s museums to promote France’s political and commercial interests abroad. “Museums Are Not for Sale,” proclaimed the headline of an opinion article in Le Monde on December 13 signed by three heavyweights of the French art world, Françoise Cachin, former director of French museums; Jean Clair, former director of the Picasso Museum; and Roland Recht, a leading art historian. “From a moral point of view,” the authors wrote, “one can only be shocked by the commercial and promotional use of masterpieces of our national heritage.”