15 September, 2008: the day that Lehman Brothers’s bankruptcy is announced, Damien Hirst puts his year’s production up for auction at Sotheby’s in New York. Lot n°13 is a piece called The Golden Calf. The bidding is astronomical! Tuesday, 29 October, 1929: Black Tuesday on Wall Street. A few days later, on 8 November, MOMA, New York’s Museum of Modern Art, is inaugurated with pomp and circumstance. During financial crises, art – more than just a simple refuge- actually becomes a motor. Artists interpret the world and herald its mutations. More than just a financial crisis, the storm we are currently crossing is a formidable change of civilisation, because of the acceleration of both the reality and our knowledge of globalisation, particularly since China’s arrival on the international stage. Culture will lead us to the paths of a new renaissance. In this mutation, France has no shortage of artists. But for too many years now, it has done nothing to promote them on the international scene, despite the fact that they represent an essential dimension in our global influence. The battle isn’t lost, but it is time to mobilise the troops. Before the FIAC, Pierre and Arnaud Cornette de Saint Cyr present a vigorous defence of contemporary art, and call for France’s cultural institutions to wake up and promote national artists.