Where are the French conductors? Not in France

Novagerio says:

Ruben, great conductors train orchestras. They don’t just fly high over a great orchestras greatness, like getting a “free ride”.
The main french orchestras were mainly in Paris; they were the Lamoureux, the Colonne, the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire Orchestra, and those orchestras were good, but undisciplined (like most french and italian orchestras still are). Monteux, Cluytens, Münch, Paray and later Martinon, Fournet and Fremaux conducted them frequently, despite having their careers with foreign top orchestras.
The Orchestre de Paris was founded in 1968 by the then cultural minister Malraux and the director of music Landowski, with the purpose of creating a first class orchestra that should be among the top european orchestras. For that matter they chose Karajan and later Solti to trim the orchestra. originally it had been created for Münch, but he died that year. Karajan managed to record three fabulous albums with them (Franck Symphony in D, some Ravel works and Berlioz’s Fantastique. Malgoire plays in fact the English horn in those recordings). The working load was to heavy, so Karajan quit and later Solti quit having achieved nothing with the orchestra. Solti stated publicly that he would only conduct first class orchestras (so much for being a great “orchestral trainer”!), and then they got Bareinboim, who brought the orchestra a Deutsche Grammophon contract (Karajan recorded them for EMI).

But the political intrigues and the insane bureaucracy is quiet an ordeal in Paris, maybe even in the rest of France.
Boulez and the socialist minister Malraux were very tight and that’s how the Ircam got started. I still believe Boulez had power enough to keep people he disliked away, such as the great composer Dutilleux (for me personally a superior composer compared with Boulez).

And then there was the Myung whun Chung incident in 1991 with the Bastille orchestra, wich is proof of how wrong things can go in France when politics are mixed with the arts. Chung had also brought them a DGG contract, wich the orchestra lost immediately as soon as Chung left. They haven’t basically record at all ever since. The same happened recently with the Seoul Philharmonic once a corrupt “political lackey” of an intendant fired Chung.
And I don’t need to mention the Helga Schmidt incident in Valencia, a scandalous political wreck that basically cost Frau Schmidt her life.