Of the estimated 90,000 African artworks in French museums, around 70,000 are at Paris’ Quai Branly museum/AFP
PARIS, France, Nov 21 – Experts appointed by President Emmanuel Macron will advise him on Friday to allow the return of thousands of African artworks held in French museums, a radical shift in policy which could put pressure on other former colonial powers.
Calls have been growing in Africa for the restitution of its cultural treasures, but French law strictly forbids the government from ceding state property, even in well-documented cases of pillaging.
Yet Macron raised hopes for a change during a speech in Burkina Faso in November last year, saying “Africa’s heritage cannot just be in European private collections and museums.”
He later asked French art historian Benedicte Savoy and Senegalese writer Felwine Sarr to study the matter, and they are to present Macron with their report on Friday.
According to a copy seen by AFP, they recommend amending French law to allow the restitution of cultural works if bilateral accords are struck between France and African states.
The change would apply in particular to works held in museums which were “transferred from their original territory during the French colonial period,” the report said.
“We propose changing heritage laws so that all types of cases can be taken into account, and the criteria of consentment can be invoked,” Sarr told French daily Liberation in an article posted late Tuesday.
The report was welcomed by advocates of the restitution of works which were bought, bartered and in some cases simply stolen.
“Today it feels as if we’re just a step away from recovering our history and being finally able to share it on the continent,” Marie-Cecile Zinsou, a daughter of Benin’s former prime minister and president of the Zinsou Art Foundation in Cotonou, told AFP.
Art dealers worried
While the ownership controversy is nothing new, the issue was thrust into the spotlight in 2016 when President Patrice Talon of Benin asked France to return items including carvings, sceptres and sacred doors from the Palaces of Abomey, formerly the capital of the kingdom of Dahomey.
France refused, citing its law that museums are forbidden from permanently parting with any piece in their collections.
Of the estimated 90,000 African artworks in French museums, around 70,000 are at Paris’ Quai Branly museum, created by ex-president Jacques Chirac, a keen admirer of African and Asian art.
In order to proceed with any restitutions, “a request would have to be lodged by an African country, based on inventory lists which we will have sent them,” according to the report.
The prospect has raised hackles among some curators and art dealers who say it would eventually empty museums and galleries in some Western countries.
They point to the fact that many objects came from kingdoms which no longer exist, and that in many cases the owners can claim they were obtained legitimately.
Critics also say the move could prompt private French collectors to move their works out of France for fear of seizure.
“No dealer in African art was consulted” by the report’s authors, said Yves-Bernard Debie, a Belgian lawyer who is one of the most vocal opponents of returning works taken by soldiers, explorers and others during the colonial era.
European conservationists meanwhile have raised practical concerns, worrying artefacts could be stolen or handled improperly if given to inexperienced museums in politically unstable countries.
But the report’s authors said art market professionals were indeed among those who contributed to the report, along with collectors, lawmakers, legal specialists and even “sceptics”.
Dispersed heritage
Britain too has faced numerous calls to return artefacts to the countries they originate from, including the Elgin Marbles to Greece and the Benin Bronzes to Nigeria.
On Tuesday, the governor of Easter Island in the Pacific tearfully begged the British Museum to return one of its famous statues.
The London museum has held the Hoa Hakananai’a, one of the most spiritually important of the Chilean island’s stone monoliths, for 150 years.
Elsewhere in Europe, the French experts said 37,000 objects from Sub-Saharan Africa were at Vienna’s Weltmuseum and 180,000 were at Belgium’s Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren.
The report said such collections were effectively depriving Africans of their artistic and cultural heritage.
“On a continent where 60 percent of the population is under the age of 20 years old, what is first and foremost of a great importance is for young people to have access to their own culture, creativity, and spirituality from other eras,” it said.
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