French fury over Time culture snub

Just when the French president Nicolas Sarkozy was trying to mend his country's relationship with the United States, along comes Time magazine to spoil the party. Gallic pride has been badly hurt by a cover story in the magazine's Europe edition claiming that culture in France is dead. The only living artist of international standing that Time's readers could think of was the singer Johnny Halliday - and he's just announced he's finally going to stop touring due to old age.

What happened to the country that produced Impressionism and Surrealism, the magazine asked? The article quoted a 2006 study of the European contemporary art market which showed that while Damien Hirsts sold for an average of $180,000, the top French artist on the list, Robert Combas, commanded only $7,500 per work.

As for movies, the country that gave us Jean Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut now makes "amiable, low-budget trifles" for the domestic market where American films account for nearly half the cinema tickets sold.
And where are the writers to take the place of Balzac, Flaubert and Proust, not to mention Sartre and Camus? "Fewer than a dozen French novels a year are translated for the US market, while about 30 per cent of all fiction sold in France is translated from English," the article stated.

The counter-attack has been led by novelist Maurice Druon. "Culture is not determined by the weekly box office," he wrote in the Figaro. "Culture asserts itself over time. Like most of his public, the author from Time confuses culture and entertainment."

Didier Jacob, joining battle via the Nouvel Observateur, said the problem stemmed from the American definition of French culture. "If it could be reduced to an algebraic formula, it would be: De Gaulle + Sartre + baguette + Sophie Marceau's breasts (above) = the culture of France," he said.

Other French commentators have rather desperately pointed to names such as Natalie Dessay, the diva who took centre stage at the opening of the Metropolitan Opera's season, and Bernard-Henri Levy, the philosopher frequently seen holding forth on prime-time television.

Only Liberation admitted that Time might have a point: "Our country apparently has slumped into navel gazing, at a moment when the world is moving fast, and we are struggling to produce popular culture."