PARIS (AP) - French art lovers reacted with dismay Tuesday to a wealthy businessman's decision to scrap plans to build a museum in Paris for his major contemporary art collection and show it in Venice instead.

Francois Pinault, whose luxury and retail empire runs from Gucci clothes to Printemps department stores, wrote in the newspaper Le Monde that it was "with immense disappointment and great sadness" that he was ditching the planned museum.

Pinault blamed red tape, saying he lost patience with administrative delays on the project that started in September 2000.

"Eternity is the timescale of art, not of projects that wish to serve it," he wrote.

Art experts called the decision catastrophic and said Pinault's difficulties showed that the state has too much influence over arts in France.

"In French culture, we look too much to the state for support," Nicolas Bourriaud, joint director of the Palais de Tokyo museum in Paris, told The Associated Press.

Speaking by telephone, he added: "Pinault's decision is perhaps the electric shock necessary for France to become aware of its isolationism on the international art scene."

The museum was to have been built on an island in the middle of the River Seine west of Paris, on the site of a disused Renault factory. Pinault had picked Japanese architect Tadao Ando to design the building, which he hoped to open in 2005.

Pinault, a friend of President Jacques Chirac, has been an avid art collector for more than 30 years, and his collection includes works by some of the most prestigious names in modern and contemporary art, from Pablo Picasso to Andy Warhol.

Pinault said he now plans to house his collection in his recently-acquired Palazzo Grassi, an elegant, 18th-century palace on the Grand Canal in Venice.

"My desire to share my passion for art remains intact," Pinault wrote. "That's why I'm seizing this great opportunity ... to start without delay to open my collection to the public."

Yvon Lambert, a private collector and art dealer in Paris, said "it's a catastrophe that this extraordinary art collection will leave France."

Speaking in parliament, Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres also said he regretted that Pinault's "project, which raised a lot of hopes, is not seeing the light of day."

He proposed that Pinault lend his collection to a Paris art museum, such as the Palais de Tokyo, instead of taking it abroad.