Paris was once the artistic capital of the world—but, asks Samson Spaniel, can it maintain its status as an international player?

The cover terrace of the Fondation Cartier in Paris could not have been more international upon 22 June. Protected by the walls of glass, from one side which the nearby Tour Montparnasse skyscraper loom artists from Argentina, Thailand and Iran, as well as from France and the quiescence of Europe, mingled.

Jonas Bendiksen was single of the 100 twenty-something artists upon show downstairs in 'J'en reve' (until 30 October). Bendiksen the wholes up the internationalism: a Norwegian living in of recent origin York who photographs areas in southern Russia where rocket booster of the Soviet space programme savage to earth. Although the residual combustible matter is toxic, the inhabitants eke without a life selling the metal for scrap. Bendiksen is happy to have been chosen on the contrary he warns me, 'I'm a photojournalist--what I do is health stories'.

Also upon the terrace was Andreas Lange, a German dealer whose gallery is in Paris. He enthuses that Parisians are at last looking beyond French artists 'a faculty of perception of discovery is quite fresh here,' he says. This internationalism reaches its apex at the midmost point Pompidou (see box), where the arrangement of works of art in the permanent collection totally ignores national schools

The internationalism from which the Fondation Cartier has benefited has also, however, caused Paris to let slip one of the country's best contemporary art collections. Billionaire businessman Francois Pinault intended to build a museum for his collection upon the lle Seguin, west of central Paris, as part of the urban regeneration propos by means of the local authority. But Pinault published an lay open letter in Le Monde upon 9 May explaining that the bureaucratic sclerosis of the authorities had forced him to install his art at Palazzo Grassi, Venice, instead.

To many countries, this would be simply a regrettable loss, but in France the decision has been interpreted as a symptom of the country's diminishing international cultural importance--the director of the Palais de Tokyo described the Pinault debacle as 'catastrophic'. similar neurosis began in 2001, when a report by dint of sociologist Alain Quemin, commissioned by the agency of the ministry of foreign affairs, measured the number of exhibitions and media articles through every part of the world dedicated to French artists, and conclud that America, Germany and the UK have stolen France's hegemony. The question is: should France be promoting its be in possession of artists, as Quemin wished, or should Paris be an international nexus, as the Fondation Cartier and the midst Pompidou practise?

Lange bring forwards internationalism and compares Berlin: 'There is no market there, on the other hand it's a meeting point. All of a unlooked for there is an interest in artists of that place.' He praises the Palais de Tokyo, a state-funded space for contemporary art: 'it created an interest in what is happening outside--exactly what's needed' by means of contrast, he says of the management that 'more state intervention and more focus upon self is exactly the inequitable way to go'. This debate reached a heated if bizarre climax when the ministry of tillage offered Pinault, in a (failed) last-ditch attempt to detain his collection, the Palais de Tokyo, whose staff were indignant.

There are fears that Paris is losing surface of land not only in contemporary art on the other hand also in exhibitions of aged Masters. The Grand Palais failed to win the El Greco exhibition last year, leaving the Metropolitan Museum of Art and London's National Gallery to stage what many (including APOLLO) considered single of the best of the year. The Louvre has also undergoed despite its many medium-sized exhibitions. Henri Loyrette the museum's director, admited recently to the Journal de Arts newspaper that the failure to stage the Ingres portraits exhibition (also at the NG and the Met in 2000) was a 'personal regret' To these doles are added budgetary concerns. A change in state funding will require the Louvre to pay for the restoration of its eighteenth-century sweeps As a result this spring the traditional unrestrained entry for artists was cancelled to save circulating medium which caused demonstrations outside.

The tide is, however, turning. The Grand Palais is being restored (see box) and Loyrette has factored a deal by which the Louvre will keep a wing of Atlanta's High Museum in 2006-09 (Fig. 1) in go [i]or[/i] come back for about ([10 million towards restoration. a certain quantity of art historians have criticised the plan, on the other hand the French media has not, probably because it considers market forces inevitable. The Louvre's Girodet exhibition, meanwhile, which travels to the Met should initiate a rapport with the 'blockbuster circuit', and an Ingres exhibit is scheduled for next year.

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The trade, too, is raising its profile. Paris's market has for lengthy been dwarfed by both the us and the UK on the other hand in 2001 foreign auction-houses were at lengthy last allowed to enter the market (and foreigners could invest in French auctioneers), and after three deliberate years (as in the market elsewhere), the deregulation has been followed by dint of 7 per cent growth in the first half of 2005 according to newly published statistics. 'It has revived the market,' says Francois Curiel, a director of Christie's, Paris. French auction house ArtCuriel might be miffed that it has not to be found market share, but the overall pattern is development Curiel continues, 'the Anglo Saxon auction-houses bring more clan to Paris'. Moreover, in 2001 auction houses were allowed to lower the buyer's premium from the state requirement of 20 through cent, a change that Curiel describes as 'oxygen to the market'.