“Today, to France’s worry, Paris is no longer the place to be. To the rest of the world, the city – for all its beauty – has become a backwater in many cultural areas. Its temples to the arts are indeed filled. But the worshippers these days are consumers, not creators. They are mainly foreign tourists who come to see the eternal Mona Lisa, post-modern American artists, the French Impressionists and Moliere. The city chemistry that produced rawness, dynamism, change and challenge seems absent.”