TWO YEARS AGO, when we first raised in these pages the plans by the Musée du Louvre and the Centre Georges Pompidou to expand their activities both at home and abroad, we remarked on how little scrutiny they had attracted.1  In recent months, however, a fierce debate has raged in France over the global ambitions of the country’s leading museums. It was ignited by Françoise Cachin, former director of the Musées de France, Jean Clair, former director of the Musée Picasso, and the art historian Roland Recht, writing in Le Monde last December.2  Their disquiet at a reversal of France’s historic policy of disengagement from globalisation has grown to widespread dismay with the announcement that the Louvre is to lend its name to a museum to be built in the oil-rich emirate of Abu Dhabi.

Of the two institutions’ planned antennes, only the three-year collaboration between the Louvre and the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, has so far transpired. Inaugurated last autumn, the Louvre Atlanta, which occupies its own wing of Renzo Piano’s spectacular new museum, has become temporary home to some of the French state’s most prized possessions: already Raphael’s Baldassare Castiglione, Velázquez’s Infanta Margarita, Murillo’s Young beggar and Poussin’s Et in arcadia ego have crossed the Atlantic. Meanwhile, the Centre Pompidou’s hopes of gaining a foothold in Asia have suffered several setbacks: it has just lost its bid to operate a franchise, as part of a casino complex, in Singapore, and its joint proposal with the Guggenheim Foundation to run a modern art museum in Hong Kong has been put on hold by the Chinese government. Undaunted, the Pompidou is currently negotiating the construction of a satellite museum in Shanghai. Whatever one thinks of these endeavours, they have been undertaken on the initiative of the individual museums (following a change in their statutes in 2003 enabling them to raise supplementary income from non-governmental sources); and, in the case of the Louvre, the revenue from the arrangement – Atlanta is paying €13 million in return for loans, advice and expertise – will be used directly for the Museum’s benefit: specifically, the much-needed refurbishment of its eighteenth-century decorative arts galleries.

The Abu Dhabi project has arisen in quite different circumstances, instigated by the French Ministry of Culture and imposed on those institutions involved – not just the Louvre, but also the Musée d’Orsay, the Musée Picasso, the Musée du Quai Branly, the Château de Versailles and the Pompidou, all of which are expected to contribute, in one way or another, to the new Museum. Some of their directors are known to have been resistant to the idea; and thirty-nine curators at the Louvre have supported a motion protesting at the Ministry’s high-handedness. The Abu Dhabi Louvre is intended to be the centrepiece of a major tourist development – encompassing golf courses, luxury hotels and four other museums, including the ubiquitous Guggenheim – on Saadiyat Island, scheduled to open in 2012. The Museum, to be financed by Abu Dhabi, will use the Louvre’s name for ten years, during which time French museums will provide a rotating display of works drawn from their holdings as well as a programme of temporary exhibitions. They will also assist the Museum in building its own collection, although it should be noted that in a country where there is no division between the interests of the state and those of the ruling family, this will be essentially a private collection, the property of the Emir of Abu Dhabi. The fees for these services, totalling €1 billion, will be paid to the Ministry of Culture.

From the outset, this project has been cloaked in secrecy, hardly allaying suspicions that France’s political and economic interests in the Middle East have played a more crucial role in its realisation than its declared aim of creating a musée universel to promote a liberalising dialogue between East and West. Many issues remain unresolved. Will the new Museum be permitted, for example, to show works depicting nudity or Christian iconography? Already, censorship has been applied, to an alarming degree. The online magazine La Tribune de l’Art, which has led opposition to the Abu Dhabi scheme with a petition signed by many leading figures in the French art world, has found its website blocked in the Emirates. In France, three vocal critics of the government’s policy – Mme Cachin, M. Recht and Michel Laclotte, honorary président-directeur of the Louvre – have not had renewed their appointments to the Conseil artistique des Musées nationaux. Their reinstatement must be a priority of the new Ministry of Culture, following this month’s presidential election.

Presidents, no less than prime ministers, fret about their legacies, and a preoccupation of Jacques Chirac’s final period in office has been his desire to be seen as a defender of global culture. His own grand projet, the Musée du Quai Branly, has been loudly condemned for its clumsy presentation of France’s collections of ethnographic art. The Abu Dhabi Louvre, which has been enthusiastically promoted by the Elysée Palace, may yet surpass it as a monument to political vanity. The contract signed between the governments of France and the United Arab Emirates on 6th March means that the Museum is, effectively, a fait accompli. Nonetheless, vigilance is still necessary. The establishment of an Agence internationale des Musées de France to manage the project raises the prospect of further such schemes, with the danger that the Louvre’s name will increasingly be marketed like a prêt-a-porter brand and exported around the world. In the meantime, we await confirmation of which works will be sent to Abu Dhabi and for how long, and proof that the fees will neither be withheld from French museums nor used as an expedient for cutting their existing budgets. In its Arabian venture the Ministry of Culture has lost much credibility and goodwill; it should not be allowed to squander the bounty as well.

1  See  ‘Going global: the Louvre and the Pompidou’, THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 147 (April 2005), p.223.
2  F. Cachin, J. Clair and R. Recht: ‘Les musées ne sont pas à vendre’, Le Monde, 12th December 2006.