"I want the conditions to be met within five years for temporary or permanent restitution of African heritage in Africa" ​​announced Emmanuel Macron in Ouagadougou in 2017. Next month, it will be done for the first time.

While the Quai Branly museum has no less than 70,000 objects from sub-Saharan Africa in its collection (i.e. most of the French public collections of African art), 26 of them will return to Benin, their country of origin, from November.

To celebrate their last weeks in metropolitan France, the Parisian museum is offering to say goodbye to these works from the ancient kingdom of Danhomè, through an exhibition that will end on Sunday, October 31.

Initial studies on the origin of acquisitions

In 2017 and following his speech in the capital of Burkina Faso, Emmanuel Macron commissioned a report from Felwine Sarr and Bénédicte Savoy on the issue of African heritage preserved in France.

Submitted in November 2018, this report recommended in particular “total clarity on the historical and scientific contexts through which the objects arrived in the collections which keep them today.

"

At the same time, the Musée du Quai Branly has been carrying out for several years "a long work" on all the works it keeps in order to identify "those which would have been taken violently without the consent of the owners, by war or by coercion from the colonial administration, ”explained Emmanuel Kasarhérou, president of the museum, during the inauguration of the Benin Cultural Week at Quai Branly.

In the case of the 26 soon-to-be returned works, it was established that the thrones, statues, palace gates and other items were looted by colonial troops in 1892, led at the time by General Dodds.

Gaëlle Beaujean, curator at the museum, explains that “the French state never asked for spoils of war in this conflict, so the objects were taken in a private / personal way.

Some continue to circulate in families, others go through the market.

We come to a point, even 130 years later, when certain objects can reappear on the market, and we are already in the 6th or 7th hand, sometimes more ”.

Here, the 26 returned objects come from a donation from General Dodds, handed over in 1892 and 1895.

The restitution required a derogation from the law

Since the 16th century (and despite a short break), an edict has declared that all the goods which form part of the public national collections are inalienable, that is to say, they cannot be sold, exchanged or even returned.

Even today, "all museums with public collections are governed by this law, which goes beyond the type of political regime", specifies the curator.

Thus, only a derogation from this law allowed the restitution of works.

First requested by Emmanuel Macron, the proposed law was voted in the National Assembly on December 17, 2020, then promulgated by the president on December 24 of the same year.

Open to the public since Tuesday, the ephemeral exhibition seems to attract the curious.

“Initially, I was supposed to come to see another exhibition, but I tell myself that these are works that I may not see again, unless I go to Benin” explains one of the visitors.

A little further on, a mother adds, "I like African arts, so it's an opportunity to show my son a different culture, and of course to see these objects one last time".

"I think it's a fair return"

Concerning the restitution of the works in Benin, a favorable opinion seems to be shared by the public present on the spot, like this visitor, who explains to us, “it is rather normal to return the treasures, the treasures to the country of origin. works that have been divested from them.

We had the pleasure of having them in France, but given the conditions in which it was taken… I think it's a fair return ”.

Finally, remember that these objects will first be in a storage place in Benin, before being exhibited at the old Portuguese fort of Ouidah and the governor's house, "historic places of slavery and European colonization," while waiting for the construction of a new museum in Abomey ”, specifies the director of the museum.

The beginning, undoubtedly, of a series of restitutions ...

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