"It's a first step" because "looted works of art and books are still kept in public collections - objects that should not, that should never have been there", underlines the Minister of Culture Roselyne Bachelot, while research on the provenance of the collections has accelerated.

She welcomes a "historic" law, by which for the first time in seventy years, "a government initiates a process allowing the restitution of works from public collections looted during the Second World War or acquired in troubled conditions. during the Occupation, because of anti-Semitic persecutions".

The National Assembly adopted it unanimously on January 25, under the eyes of the families or their representatives in the gallery.

It is the turn of the Senate dominated by the right to approve this text which makes it possible to derogate from the principle of inalienability of public collections.

According to the rapporteur at the Luxembourg Palace Béatrice Gosselin (LR), the law will have a "major impact from the point of view of the recognition and reparation of the Shoah".

Because the spoliations "were, whatever form they may have taken - theft, looting, confiscation, sale under duress -, one of the aspects of the policy of annihilation of the Jews of Europe led by the Nazi regime" and "without being the instigator, the Vichy regime also actively collaborated in these crimes", she notes.

Among the 15 works is "Rosiers under the trees" by Gustav Klimt, kept at the Musée d'Orsay, and the only work by the Austrian painter belonging to the French national collections.

It was acquired in 1980 by the State from a merchant.

French Minister of Culture Roselyne Bachelot next to Gustav Klimt's painting "Rosiers under the trees" on March 15, 2021 in Paris ALAIN JOCARD POOL / AFP

Extensive research has established that it belonged to the Austrian Eléonore Stiasny who sold it during a forced sale in Vienna in 1938, during the Anschluss, before being deported and murdered.

Delay

Eleven drawings and a waxwork kept at the Louvre Museum, the Orsay Museum and the Museum of the Château de Compiègne as well as a painting by Utrillo kept at the Utrillo-Valadon Museum ("Carrefour à Sannois") are also part of the planned restitutions. .

A painting by Chagall, entitled "Le Père", kept at the Center Pompidou and entered the national collections in 1988, has been added.

It was recognized as the property of David Cender, a Polish Jewish musician and luthier, who immigrated to France in 1958.

For 13 of the 15 works, the beneficiaries were identified by the Commission for the Compensation of Victims of Spoliation (CIVS), created in 1999.

France has long been accused of lagging behind several European neighbors when it comes to reparations.

A research and restitution mission for cultural property looted between 1933 and 1945 was created within the Ministry of Culture two years ago.

Some 100,000 works of art were seized in France during the 1939-1945 war, according to the Ministry of Culture.

60,000 goods were found in Germany at the Liberation and returned to France.

Among them, 45,000 were quickly returned to their owners.

About 2,200 were selected and entrusted to the custody of the national museums ("MNR" works that can be returned by simple administrative decision) and the rest (about 13,000 objects) were sold by the administration of the Estates in the early 1950s. many looted works have thus returned to the art market.

Until the mid-1990s, the question of restitution was passed over in silence, until the fall of the Soviet bloc and the opening of new archives.

In July 1995, President Jacques Chirac opened a new page by acknowledging the responsibility of the French State in the deportation of Jews from France.

A "framework law" could facilitate restitutions in the years to come, without the need for case-by-case authorization from the legislator.

© 2022 AFP