French Pledge Cultural Aid to Stricken New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS - A delegation from France visited hurricane-ravaged New Orleans Friday to pledge cultural aid to the city that was once the capital of its vast Louisiana colony.

"I'm here to offer you the cooperation of France on a concrete basis," French Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres told a City Hall news conference with Mayor Ray Nagin through a translator. "We would like New Orleans to be a world light post as it used to be."

De Vabres said France wanted to help rebuild the city's cultural life and would start by providing aid for New Orleans musicians who scattered after Katrina struck on Aug. 29.

Concerts are being organized across France to raise money for those affected by the storm and some will be offered temporary financial aid, he said.

De Vabres said France also will loan 50 works of art from the Louvre for an exhibit at the New Orleans Museum of Art in late 2006. Louvre president Henri Loyette was in the delegation.

"The French are part of our history, part of our soul, and now they are definitely part of our future," Mayor Nagin said. "This is the first time a country has come here and stepped up to this level of commitment."

France's ties with New Orleans date back to 1682 when it claimed the city as a French territory along with an area that now encompasses 10 states. The territory was named for King Louis XIV.

In 1803, Napoleon sold the territory to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase to fund his military campaigns, effectively doubling the nation's size.

Along with government efforts, 25 French companies and their U.S. subsidiaries have given $19.9 million to Katrina relief efforts, including the deployment of the world's largest aircraft, the Airbus Beluga, to dispense nearly 20 tons of emergency supplies after the storm.

The French delegation's visit came on the same day that Britain's Prince Charles and wife Camilla Parker Bowles stopped in New Orleans as part of their U.S. tour to visit a levee and a French Quarter school, prompting the French minister to poke fun at how his announcement was overshadowed by the British royal couple.

"I say long live competitiveness, because there is a very important European personality who is going to come here to help," he said, referring to Charles.