Macron’s promise of African heritage returns faces setbacks Restitution or retention?

The article published by The Art Newspaper covers the ongoing process of returning African heritage items from France, delving into the mixed signals surrounding the full return of cultural artefacts to African nations.

According to the paper, it has been seven years since French President Emmanuel Macron announced his landmark plan to return African heritage to the continent. His November 2017 declaration in Burkina Faso that "African heritage can’t just be in European private collections and museums" reignited the global debate over the restitution of colonial artefacts.

Since then, the journey toward restitution has been slow and challenging. In January 2022, France’s Senate approved a bill — proposed by senators Catherine Morin-Desailly, Max Brisson, and Pierre Ouzoulias — to establish a national expert commission that would be consulted on all future non-European restitution cases. This bill also proposed facilitating the return of human remains held in French public collections, a law that was passed last December.

In June 2023, the National Assembly unanimously voted to adopt a law enabling public institutions to return Nazi-looted objects in their collections. The process has gained further momentum with the publication of guidelines for the return of looted objects from both the colonial and Nazi periods, included in a report by former Louvre director Jean-Luc Martinez.

However, the third part of the senators’ restitution proposal, which concerns colonial items, has not yet been scheduled for debate in the National Assembly. "The third framework law on the restitution of colonial spoliations was to be submitted to parliament in the spring of this year," Ouzoulias tells The Art Newspaper. He adds that the process was interrupted by political turmoil following Macron’s decision to call snap parliamentary elections in June, which delayed the legislative schedule.

Amid these delays, an important artefact from the Ivory Coast housed at the Musée Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac in Paris will be returned to its homeland. Earlier this month, the Djidji Ayôkwé drum — used by the Ébrié community to warn against danger — was transferred to the Ivorian government.

"This is a historic day for Côte d'Ivoire!" said Françoise Remarck, the Ivorian minister of culture, during a signing ceremony on November 18 at the French Ministry of Culture. The drum, which was seized by French forces in 1916, was part of a list of 148 works that the Ivory Coast officially requested for restitution from France in 2018.

According to a ministry statement, "The ministers proceeded with a joint signing of an agreement for the deposit of the ‘talking drum’ known as Djidji Ayôkwé, kept in the national collections… as well as the signing of a partnership agreement between the French Republic and the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire relating to heritage and museum cooperation."

However, the return of the drum is part of a trickle of restitutions rather than a flood. France has previously repatriated a 19th-century sabre to Senegal and 26 items to Benin. The country has also returned the crown of Madagascar’s last queen, Ranavalona III, as a long-term loan via diplomatic channels, bypassing the need for parliamentary approval.

"The delay in voting on the framework restitution law required the government to act urgently and organise the transfer of the drum by means of a deposit agreement, which is an administrative decision that does not require a vote by parliament," Ouzoulias explains. "However, the Senate culture committee wanted this deposit to be formalized by a specific law that would allow the drum to be returned in full ownership. A bill was tabled for this purpose."

Rachida Dati, France’s culture minister, told Le Quotidien de l’Art: "Restitutions have been taboo for too long. But it is a subject on which we must not give up. That is why, in order to speed up things, I preferred to opt for a two-stage solution [with the drum]: a deposit agreement and then a law on the transfer of ownership."

An anonymous French journalist tracking the developments remarked: "Macron promised to restitute the drum in 2021. But since then, we have been waiting for a law organizing such restitutions, which has not yet been submitted to parliament. As a result, the drum can only be transferred to Côte d'Ivoire on the basis of a long-term loan. In other words, France continues to apply a policy of restitutions bit-by-bit, against the backdrop of its diplomatic interests."

Ouzoulias adds, "Rima Abdul Malak, the previous culture minister, had been very active on the restitution file, which had allowed for important work with the Senate. The current minister has not shown the same enthusiasm. Since the beginning of the year, the Ministry of Culture has done very little work on this file. The diplomatic pressure exerted by several African states forced it to get involved."

By Tamilla Hasanova