French Defend French Culture

PARIS—Veteran Time magazine correspondent Don Morrison wrote in last week's issue that French culture has become parochial despite it being state subsidized, sparking vindictive responses from the France's culture establishment, the BBC reports.

Morrison wrote that most recent French films appeal only domestically, that few new novels today find publishers outside France, that London and New York are now more important visual centers than Paris, and that current French pop stars are unknown to most Americans.

Le Figaro, a right-wing French daily, reacted with a list of recent French cultural successes, including an Edith Piaf biopic, the electronic group Daft Punk, and architect Jean Nouvel. Others in the French arts establishment followed suit, variously arguing that that the American view of French arts is oversimplified, that Morrison was confusing culture and entertainment, that classics aren't necessarily bestsellers when they launch, and that numbers and money can't measure art.

On the other hand, the BBC reported, France has nothing to replace popularity as a benchmark for artistic success except the "self-serving" arguments of the "elite" itself.