Free Republic

Commerce: Is it just us, or does McDonald's opening at the Louvre sound ... just wrong? Nothing against the fast food giant. But in the land of cordon bleu, where are the French entrepreneurs to sell there instead? Food snobs, of course, will exclaim "quelle horreur!" at the thought of the odor of fries wafting through the high temple of French culture, one of the world's greatest art museums. The thought of a Mona Lisa Extra Value Meal, as one satirical Web site put it, would make anyone shudder. Fortunately, it won't be like that. McDonald's will open its 1,142nd...

(ANSAmed) - PARIS, JULY 17 - A "luminous and liberated" veil, in the spirit of Islam's poetics, will cover but not hide, thanks to a light transparent structure, the Visconti Court of the Louvre Museum in Paris, in the right wing, to host the new museum of Islamic arts, to be established in 2010. ¿It is a political museum¿, as explained to ANSA by Rudy Ricciotti, of Italian origins, one of the two architects, with Mario Bellini from Milan, who designed the project, selected among 52 applicants. "In the sense that it recognises all the peoples in a lay state,...

It is known as the Veil and is described by its architects as a giant glass Muslim headscarf in the heart of Paris. The former French president Jacques Chirac saw it as one way to avert a clash of civilisations in the run-up to the Iraq war. President Nicolas Sarkozy calls it the symbol of France's friendship with the Arab world. The Louvre's bold new Islamic art wing had its first stone laid by Sarkozy yesterday , launching the museum's most daring project since IM Pei created the giant glass pyramid 20 years ago. The world's most visited museum will...

PARIS (AFP) — French President Nicolas Sarkozy praised Islam on Wednesday at a ceremony with Saudi Prince Al Walid bin Talal to lay the first stone for a new Islamic art section of the Louvre museum. "This will be an opportunity for the French and all visitors to the Louvre to see that Islam is progress, science, finesse, modernity, and that fanaticism in the name of Islam is a corruption of Islam," Sarkozy said at the ceremony. The new exhibition space is due to open in 2010 after the 86-million-euro (136-million-dollar) renovation project is completed at the Louvre, which draws...

.."the processes can be divided into two categories, one material aimed at the most popular sites and most important economically, (Eiffel Tower, Louvre Museum, etc.) and the second directed against important figures [of] Paris, led by the mayor of Paris."

PARIS: Four years and almost 5 million euros later, Leonard da Vinci's Mona Lisa has moved into spacious new digs at the Louvre Museum in Paris but her famous smile remains as enigmatic as ever. From Wednesday, visitors will find the 500-year-old painting in the Salle des Etats, a large gallery that served as a parliamentary debating chamber until 1870 and which has undergone a 4.8 million euro makeover since 2001. Peruvian architect Lorenzo Piqueras said he wanted to make it easier for six million annual visitors to find what is arguably the world's most celebrated smile, and to prevent...

The world's leading museums are to join forces to send an emergency team to Iraq to help rebuild its shattered cultural heritage. The Louvre, the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, New York's Metropolitan and the Hermitage in St Petersburg are among those preparing to contribute to a task force led by the British Museum. The alliance is being co-ordinated by Neil MacGregor, the British Museum's director, who last week pledged to send his own curators to help assess the extent of the cultural "catastrophe" suffered by the Iraqi capital. Up to 170,000 priceless antiquities – many hailing from the earliest...