France appoints “artistic director” for EU Presidency

So now we start to see where some of the 190 million euro budget for the Presidency is going…

According to La Tribune de Geneve French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner has said he wants the French EU Presidency to be “very creative” and has appointed well-known French designer Philippe Starck as “artistic director for the French EU Presidency.” Starck told AFP, “Bernard Kouchner wants to mark a very, very vivid, very interesting, very creative French Presidency.” He said it was a matter of giving “the image of very modern, very creative France, using the most sophisticated technologies, and therefore not a ‘basque beret’ France but an avant-garde France.” Starck has been chosen to come up with the French Presidency merchandise. He said “There are many things which are traditionally given out to journalists, ministers, delegates… for the first time in the whole history of the EU, all that will be created with high quality”, instead of “simply sticking little logos on things.” He said he has created “many useful things”, between “ten to fifteen objects” which will be presented in June. He has also come up with “events,” and said, “there will be loads of them”, of all kinds, but mostly cultural.

Meanwhile, the Wikipedia entry for Philippe Starck quotes him telling a German newspaper last month that he plans to retire within two years because his work is "unnecessary and materialistic".