Shock horror in the French art world this week as the billionaire businessman Francois Pinault announces that he is pulling the plug on his planned 150 million euro gallery in Paris. Pinault -- the man who owns the FNAC media chain and Christie's auction house among multiple other holdings -- had pledged to build the gallery on the site of the old Renault factory on an island in the river Seine a few miles downstream from the Eiffel Tower. It was to be used to put on display his 2,500 strong collection of contemporary art, which includes works by Jackson Pollock, Warhol, Jeff Koons, Damien Hurst etc etc. But on Monday he announced in Le Monde that he is so frustrated by the series of planning delays and other obstacles that he is dropping the whole project. Instead he will house his collection in the magnificent Palazzo Grassi which he has just acquired in Venice. Whatever one's views on modern art, this is surely a sad comment on French attitudes to cultural philanthropy a l'Americaine. A huge opportunity was there for the taking to establish Paris as a centre of modern art in the first half of the 21st century (let's face it - it has not exactly excelled at it in recent years) but instead of leaping at it, the country showed total uninterest. Catherine Millet, editor of ArtPress magazine (and best-selling author of The Sexual Life of Catherine M.) said it shows how "people still despise modern art. They think a rich businessman like Pinault should put his money into good social causes rather than in what they see as a load of rubbish." For Le Figaro, the story illustrates how the French like their art handed to them by the state but feel private collections are somehow tainted. Anyway -- France's loss is Venice's gain, and it is hard not to feel angry.