The National Assembly unanimously approved a bill on Tuesday October 6 restoring to Benin and Senegal cultural property brought to France during colonial times as "spoils of war".
The text must now be considered by the Senate.
The transfer to Benin covers 26 pieces - statues, royal seat, ornate doors in particular - from the "Trésor de Béhanzin" from the Abomey palace in 1892. They are today at the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum in Paris.
Senegal must recover the ownership of a saber and its scabbard attributed to El Hadj Omar Tall, a great West African military and religious figure of the 19th century.
Held by the Musée de l'Armée in Paris, these pieces are exhibited in Dakar as part of a long-term loan.
Recasting cultural relations with Africa
The bill responds to a desire to rebuild cultural relations with Africa, expressed by President Emmanuel Macron in 2017 in Ouagadougou.
The restitution of these "spoils of war" is part of a "strengthened desire for cooperation" with these two countries, declared Foreign Trade Minister Franck Riester.
The latter came to defend the text in the hemicycle in place of the Minister of Culture Roselyne Bachelot, "contact case" to Covid-19 and solitary confinement.
The Minister insisted on the punctual nature of these restitutions which derogate from the inalienable character of the French collections.
It responded to fears that they would open the way to an increase in claims and the loss of a large number of works held by French museums.
The project "only applies to these specific cases" and does not "in any way derogate from the general principle" on the inalienable nature of French public collections, he said.
With AFP
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