12/17/2020
French Senate Blocks Restitution of 27 Artifacts to Benin and Senegal in Dispute with National Assembly Breaking News
The French Senate has blocked a highly anticipated bill that would return 27 colonial-era artefacts in museum collections to Benin and Senegal, after the two houses of Parliament clashed over the terms of the new law. The dispute further delays President Emmanuel Macron’s landmark commitment in 2017 to ensure the “temporary or definitive restitution of African heritage to Africa” before his mandate expires in 2022.
If passed, the bill would compel France to return 26 royal artefacts plundered in 1892 by French troops from the palace of Abomey in present-day Benin, currently held at the Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac in Paris, as well as the sword of a west African military commander, which is already on loan to the Museum of Black Civilisations in Dakar from France’s Army Museum. New laws are needed to remove individual obj
A visitors look at wooden royal statues of the Dahomey kingdom, dated 19th century, todays Benin,at Quai Branly museum in Paris, France, Friday, Nov. 23, 2018. From Senegal to Ethiopia, artists, governments and museums are eagerly awaiting a report commissioned by French President Emmanuel Macron on how former colonizers can return African art to Africa. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)
French museum collections including the Louvre and Quai Branly Museum have ownership of tens of thousands of African artefacts that were plundered in the country’s colonial history.
In 2017 French president Emmanuel Macron promised to formulate a five-year plan that would see the “temporary or definitive restitution of African culture heritage to Africa” by 2022.
France Pushed Through a Bill to Return 27 Looted Artifacts to Benin and Senegal After Senators Threatened to Derail the Plan
The debate broke down amid a discussion of how claims would be processed.
French President Emmanuel Macron. Photo courtesy Ludovic Marin/AFP/Getty Images.
A landmark French bill that would allow for the restitution of 27 objects from France’s national collections to Benin and Senegal before the end of 2021 is set to become law but only after a last-minute clash.
The bill, which was unanimously approved by the French Senate and deputies from the National Assembly on first reading, stalled after legislators failed to agree on several provisions. But on Thursday, the National Assembly secured the support of the French Prime Minister Jean Castex, overruling the Senate’s objections and approving the bill.
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The French government recently returned the crown of Madagascar’s last queen, Ranavalona III, via diplomatic channels, bypassing Parliament
UPDATE: France will return 27 colonial-era artefacts in museums to Benin and Senegal within one year, following a
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CORRECTION: This article mistakenly stated that the French Senate had blocked the restitution bill. The Senate approved the restitutions, but added an amendment to the bill that the government refused. The National Assembly has the power to override the Senate, as it did on 17 December by voting through the restitution bill. The article also wrongly conflated the Senate’s decision on the bill on 15 December with its separate presentation of an information report on the issue of restitution on 16 December. The article has been updated to rectify these errors.