International The Telegraph

I N T E R N A T I O N A L

-Nadia Khouri-Dagher, Journalist

In 2002, at Les Gobelins tapestry works, although the patterns have changed – for example they are making an abstract tapestry by Yukihisa Isobe here – and although the 135 skilled heddle setters are now women, the craft and the materials – wool, cotton, silk, gold and silver thread – are just as they were when Louis XIV set up the works. It takes, too, the same time as it did in days gone by – a weaver can spend a year on one piece. One 40 m2 carpet with a floral motif, with its 270 shades, has been worked on for the last six years and will be for six years yet…

But above all, what has not changed, is that French tapestry is still considered the fines in the world by connoisseurs. Supported by royalty from the 17th century, French tapestry dominated Europe in the following century owing to the craze for the French life style. It saw a relative decline in the 19th century, only to be reborn in the twentieth century thanks to the activities of one charismatic individual.

The renaissance of Aubusson

A committed artist, communist and former resistance fighter, Jean Lurcat had a passion for tapestry and moved to Aubusson in 1939 (where a royal tapestry works had ben set up in the 17th century), where he attracted some of the greatest artists of the day to this art form: Picasso, Matisse, Chagall… With the heddle setter, Francois Tabard, he designed a series of pieces which would leave their mark on their times. Above all, Lurcat conducted a massive campaign of "media hype" – he traveled, persuaded and won more than public orders: he won public support. In 1946, the exhibition "La tapisserie francaise du Moyen Age a nos jours" (French Tapestry from the Middle Ages to the Present Day) presented eighty modern pieces.

Lurcat wanted to popularize this art form. He advocated a larger, hence faster, stitch and fewer colors. Thus he returned to the techniques of the Middle Ages – areas of solid color and a simpler style – while remaining uncompromisingly modern.

The Lurcat school included some famours names such a Dubreuil, Gromaire, Picart Le Doux, Dom Robert, Perrot, Petit and Adam, whose works now hang in many museums. Aubusson has been reborn, artists flock to it from all over the world. 1962 saw the first Tapestry Biennial, in Lausanne. In 1966, Le Chant du monde, a major piece by Lurcat measuring 347 m2, left its stamp on his times. And France triggered a world-wide movement – workshops were created in Poland, Australia, Tunisia, Germany, Scotland, Spain…

Today France is still the center of contemporary tapestry design, and the greatest artists have or have had pieces designed here: Arp, Kandinsky, Le Corbusier, Leger, Vasarely, Calder,, Ernst, Picasso, Man Ray…Tapestry is once again an export industry. "The name Aubusson is magical, better known abroad than in France." Stresses Manon Lerat, of the Francois-Pinton works, in business in Aubusson since 1868, and which now has a gallery in Paris.

Furthermore, French expertise has made Paris an essential place for valuations and restoration of old tapestries, and the Chevalier company advises and restores tapestries for the greatest museums, using the very latest technologies which respect the precious textiles.

An export industry

The largest tapestry in the world made in one piece, Christ in Majesty, was woven at Aubusson in 1962, for Coventry Cathedral. The seven tapestries made for the Golden Jubilee of the Queen of Denmark, in 1999, came from Les Gobelins. French tapestries today decorate buildings as diverse as the presidential palaces in Abidjan and Brazilia, the airports of Munich, New York and Ryad, the Sydney Opera House, the Vatican, the Chandigarh court of Justice, the head offices of large companies and banks and a number of French. Specialist galleries too, like the Galerie Inard, by organizing exhibitions abroad, help to increase awareness of this art from.

In france, Lurcat's projects have been taken over by artists such as Jean-Rene Sautour-Gaillard, Richard Texier, who designed the "Tapisseries des droits de l'homme" (Tapestries of Human Rights) for the bicentenary of the French Revolution, Daniel Riberzani and Michel Degand. Elsewhere in the world, young artists are choosing this mode of expression, like the Icelandic artist, Erro, who draws on comic strip art, and Martine Peucker, who creates romantic pieces in which pastels dominate.

But no words or photograph can replace standing before the real thing: the joy of one of Riberzani's intense pinks, the marveling when faced with the visual surprises of a Sautour-Gaillard or the soft greens of a Roger Muhl garden. The colors of a tapestry provide the same pleasure as those of flowers, and for the same reason – it is living matter.

The state of German unity in economic and social terms

"Aufbau Ost' began 12 years ago

Even before the German Democratic Republic acceded to the Federal Republic of Germany and came within the purview of its Basic Law, the Constitution, on October 3, 1990, the course was set for an unprecedented project. An entire state territory was to be converted to a fundamentally new political, economic and social system. To be sure, there were voices—in both East and West—that warned against a too rapid a change. There was also skepticism over the time it would take for the new legal and economic general conditions to catch on in the daily lives of the people of the former GDR. But the general mood of the German people with regard to the country's unity was positive and sometimes even euphoric in both the West and the East, especially in the latter. A speech by Chancellor Helmut Kohl in May 1990 in which he spoke of future "blossoming landscapes"' in eastern Germany matched the mood of many at that time of great political change.

A few years after unification the term was used often with an entirely different meaning—as the epitome of an irresponsible illusionism. 'Aufbau Ost', the recovery program for eastern Germany needed more time than many expected at first. But to make an appropriate assessment of what has already been achieved, it is not enough to look solely at the ongoing shortcomings there compared to the western German states. One must also look at the state of German unity today compared with the situation in 1990.

The fact is that billions were transferred from western to eastern Germany in order to push ahead with the recovery program in the East and bring living standards there into line with those of the West. There were great achievements in only a few years. The objective was to create comparable standards of living in the old and the new states as soon as possible. The desire to achieve this quickly did not stem from naīve optimism. Rather, it was based on the realistic assessment that if the relative living standards were too different many easterners, especially young people who were needed urgently to help in the recovery of the new states, would move to materially better off western Germany.

Twelve years after unity: What has been achieved: The foundations for the process of bringing the living standards and the industrial efficency of the East into line with the West are firm. The infrastructure in the new states was fundamentally renewed. More than half of national investment in rail and road traffic flows into them. By end-2001 almost 60 percent of the 'German Unity Transport Projects', a program launched in 1991 with a total volume of about 35 billion euros, had been implemented. Europe's most modern telecommunications network was built in the eastern states. The entire public administration area was converted. Environmental protection—a sector which in the former GDR was badly neglected—was improved comprehensively. Huge sums of money were spent on cleaning up residual pollution. Another key area of the recovery program was the long overdue rehabilitation and rescue of architectural monuments and historical city centers.

The entire industrial sector of the new states was fundamentally renewed. This was an especially crucial step, for it was not only about restructuring a system which was no longer competitive. Almost all of the production plants were also in such a run-down condition that there was no alternative to rebuilding them completely. Finally, due to the eastern industry's new markets its key production areas had to be redefined.

About 530,000 businesses in the East after unification, including 110,000 in the crafts and trades sector alone, have asserted themselves in the market, said the Federal Government in its 2001 Report on the State of German Unity. Many companies have successfully aligned themselves on international markets. More than three million jobs have been created, especially in small to medium-sized businesses. In overall economic terms, productivity and per capita income in eastern Germany has more than doubled since 1990. In 2000, eastern German industry's productivity grew by 2.1%, far above that of the western states with only 0.7%.

Since the mid 90s economic development in eastern Germany has been characterized by fundamental restructuring. The initial high intensive building activity following unification, which contributed to economic growth, led to great over-capacity. This had to be reduced in recent years—with marked negative impacts on growth and employment. At the same time, industry in the new states since the mid 90s has shown clear growth in sectors which have greater focus on value added and increasingly are more competitive in global terms.

The manufacturing sector and services allied to production have grown disproportionately and faster than in the western states. This applies in particular to technology-intensive branches. Since 1998 the manufacturing industry had outperformed the building sector, becoming the main pillar of development. Data for 2000 show that the manufacturing sector's dynamism has increased further. Gross value added in the new states in that year grew by 8.3% compared with 5.6% in the old states. The technology-oriented branches of the eastern manufacturing sector are enjoying above-average growth in particular. The key areas of eastern German industry are motor vehicle product, microelectronics, data processing installations, the chemicals and biotechnology branches and the energy industry. Employment in the processing industry in 2000 rose by almost 3% compared with previous year. The industry's companies are also becoming much more competitive. Unit wage costs have dropped yet closer to the still lower level of western states.

The positive development in eastern Germany resulted mainly from high investment in the manufacturing sector. On average from 1995 to 1999, per capita investment was almost double that in the western states. With regard to investment it can also be noted that despite the enormous progress the new states have made, they have still not achieved the level of the western ones. In 1991 the capital intensity of the manufacturing sector in eastern Germany was about 50% of the western German level, and in 2001 it was about 92%. On average, the capital intensity of the east German companies in 2001 reached about 85.5% of the western level.

Due to its geographical proximity to the Central and East European candidate countries for accession to the EU, eastern Germany will in future benefit from their needs for goods and services to a very great degree. EU enlargement will add more than 100 million people to the Single market. After the USA, the Central and East European countries are already east Germany's leading trade partners outside the EU. At the same time, many Germans, especially in the eastern states, are viewing the coming EU enlargement to the East with concern. The eastern countries' entry into the EU will also give their citizens access to job markets of all other EU member states. There is a danger that due to Germany's higher wages compared to countries such as Poland, the Czech and Hungary many of their workers will move to Germany, especially to the nearby eastern states placing an extra load on their already extremely strained job markets. Temporary restrictions on the free movement of the workers are to cushion the negative impacts of the planned EU accessions as far as possible.