French connection reason to believe in a cultural triumph

The art that hangs on the walls at the Musée du Louvre in Paris is one of the finest collections on Earth. The futurist pyramid at the centre of the museum's Cour Napoléon is almost as impressive, especially when it is illuminated from within after dark.
But both of these cultural icons at the heart of the French capital would be somewhat bereft of meaning were it not for that which surrounds them.
Just around the corner from the Louvre's 18th-century colonnades is the Place André Malraux, a typical Parisian square on the Rue St Honoré.
Its cobbled thoroughfares are lined with mobilettes, parked in the shade of linden trees and honey locusts. Wrought iron Belle Époque advertising hoardings painted Metro green invite passers-by to shop at Galeries Lafayette and to visit the theatre.
On one side of the square, the tables outside the Brasserie du Louvre are filled with chattering tourists and solitary office workers puffing on cigarettes or reading newspapers.
The Café de La Comédie a few doors down runs at a more frenetic pace as waiters in black and white deftly navigate the narrow spaces between tables, around trays of glasses and plates hoisted high above their heads on outstretched arms.
Between the eateries is the Tabac A la Civette, still doing a steady trade in cigarettes and lotto tickets despite warnings attached to both in most western cities these days, and the Librairie Gallimard Delamain, an old-fashioned stationers and book shop that clearly prospers despite the internet.
All of this is the context in which the Musée du Louvre is set. It is a theatrical backdrop without which the Mona Lisa's smile would perhaps not seem quite so enigmatic, or at the very least there would be nowhere to sit and discuss her over coffee, an aperitif or dinner.
The Sorbonne is the same. Where would the university and its students be without the Latin Quarter and La Rive Gauche?
This social, economic and cultural context of the UAE's own versions of these important institutions was high on the agenda at the Abu Dhabi investment forum in Paris yesterday.
More than 400 delegates gathered in the shadow of the Arc de Triomphe to learn about the economic ties between France and the UAE capital, and how both could prosper further together.
Today, the Musée du Louvre and the Sorbonne are focal points of the important relationship forged between the UAE and France.
Nasser Al Suwaidi, the chairman of the Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development, referred to both of them in his opening remarks at the forum as important milestones in "a dynamic landscape of opportunities" between Paris and the UAE capital.
The UAE has become a major economic partner with France and is the largest market for French products in the Middle East. A quarter of all French exports to the Middle East and a third of its exports to the GCC come to our country.
The relationship began in the 1930s when Total started searching for the oil reserves it later helped to extract and export.
Today that relationship has expanded to include joint ventures such as Dolphin Energy, the gas company developed in partnership with Mubadala. What is more, GDF Suez produces about half of all the power generated in the UAE.
There are French companies in the UAE involved in everything from industrial development and manufacturing, to health care, infrastructure construction, banking, finance and much more.
Beyond this big-ticket foreign direct investment though, small businesses, such as those that run the cafes, brasseries, tobacconists and stationers that lend Paris its essential je ne sais quoi, should form an equally important part of the future economic relationship between France and the UAE.
Just as on their home turf, neither the Sorbonne nor La Musée du Louvre in Abu Dhabi can operate in isolation. The landscape around them must be complete aesthetically and commercially and the UAE needs partners from France and around the world to help achieve that goal.
The Khalifa Fund, the Abu Dhabi organisation that promotes and funds small and medium-sized enterprises, was on hand at the forum yesterday to provide advice to SMEs from France looking to set up in our capital.
Taken together, the opportunity for such small businesses easily equals if not surpasses that extended by the UAE to the likes of Total, GDF Suez, La Sorbonne and the Louvre. And just like their larger counterparts they would also have great potential to generate jobs for nationals in the UAE and to further diversify the economy away from oil and gas towards a more sustainable future.
And perhaps, by the end of 2015 when the Louvre Abu Dhabi is scheduled for completion, we might be able to spend a winter's evening wandering among the cafes and brasseries of the Arabian Gulf's Rive Gauche on our own Saadiyat Island.
 
jdoran@thenational.ae