‘…Europe would have done better to tolerate the non-European civilizations at its side, leaving them alive, dynamic, and prosperous, whole, and not mutilated; that it would have been better to let them develop and fulfil themselves than to present for
our admiration, duly labelled, their dead and scattered parts; that anyway, the museum by itself is nothing; that it means nothing, that it can say nothing, when smug self-satisfaction rots the eyes, when a secret contempt for others withers the heart, when racism, admitted or not, dries up sympathy; that it means nothing if its only purpose is to feed the delights of vanity.
Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism.
The Republic of Benin recently submitted a list of thirty-five artefacts it wants restituted by France from the five thousand Benin objects held by French museums and other institutions. (1)
Readers will recall that in 2021 France returned to Benin 26 looted artefacts that did not include the statue of the god Gou, as expected, and that the former President of Benin, Patrice Talon, expressed his disappointment and that of his people that the one most important artefact of the people of Benin was not in the package. He expressed the hope that this failure will be corrected soon. Ever since that day, Benin has repeated this demand to France but to no avail. (2)
With the recently adopted general law (loi-cadre) on restitution, hopes have been revived that France will now finally fulfil its obligations, since the excuse of the principle of inalienability is no longer valid for looted artefacts. Indeed, the text of the Rapporteur of the new law mentioned Gou as one of the artefacts to be considered. (3)
The new list of thirty-five items sent to France includes, inter alia, a rifle, flag, royal swords, knives and tunic of an amazon warrior, and colonial archives.
The Benin Minister of Culture, Arts, and Heritage, Yassine Latoundji, established a National Scientific Committee of six experts, including Alain Godenou, that is charged with supporting the objectives of restitution of the thirty-five objects and providing expert advice and a road map for Benin’s restitution efforts.
What are the chances of success of Benin's demand for the thirty-five artefacts after the restitution of twenty-six objects in 2021? We would like to be as optimistic and sure as some sources that state that the demand by Benin has already received a favourable reception from France even before the matter has come before the institutions established by the new law. (4)
We have already expressed our preliminary views on the new law on restitution and welcomed the general exception made to the rule of inalienability for cultural artefacts. (5) Taking this law at its face value, it would appear not to be too difficult to secure the restitution of the statue of Gou and the other objects that Benin has requested from France. However, there are points of the law that could prove difficult to overcome or cause considerable surprises or delays. For example, we are not sure whether there will be one scientific committee for all 35 Benin artefacts or a committee for every single object, considering the opinions expressed in the National Assembly during the debate on the new law, objecting to ‘mass restitutions '. Indeed, some French legislators said that examination of requests should be cas par cas. (6) Will the restitution of thirty-five artefacts be considered as ‘wholesale restitution’?
Archaeological objects, items in public records and archives, and military objects are explicitly excluded by the new law. (7) An important question
would be whether Gou, because of its connection with the French conquest of Dahomey, could be treated as a military object and therefore placed outside the restitution pathway. Art. L.115-11 5. provides an exception to the general exclusion of military seizures from restitution: ‘In the case of property seized by the armed forces, which has not contributed to military activities, by its nature, its purpose or its use.'
The Rapporteur of the law, Mr. Frantz Gumbs, as well as the Minister for Culture, Mme Catherine Pégard, explained the provision concerning seizures by armed forces as intended to exclude broadly military property from the new law whilst at the same time including within the ambit of the law cultural property that the army seized during looting which by its very nature did not contribute to military operation. It would be left to each Joint Scientific Committee to determine which objects fell into this category. It will be interesting to see how the various bodies in the restitution process would interpret this clause.
How will the demand by Benin for public archives concerned with the artifacts be considered for restitution? Colonial powers have always been reluctant to release archives and records, for this would easily undermine the weak excuses offered for not returning looted artefacts.
The Dutch restitution specialist, Jos Van Beurden, has stated in his book, Inconvenient Heritage:
‘Something that is rarely made public is that after the independence of the colonies, archives formed during the colonial period were also the subject of negotiations. Former colonies wanted them; former colonisers would not let them go. In old documents and on old maps, colonial administrators had recorded what they could get their hands on in conquered regions, which is to say, everything that grew there and not in Europe, and therefore yielded money in Europe: spices, coffee, tea, rubber, and so on. Later, this was also extended to what was in the soil there and was lacking in Europe: minerals, oil, and the like. Former colonies shielded the exact location of deposits and fertile land from outsiders and treated the rulers of the new countries as ‘outsiders’ as well. Nor did they want outsiders to see military and administrative reports on how they had imposed their will on the colonies and the people who lived there. And yet, apart from oral histories, archives were often the only witnesses to events. (8)
Refusal to hand over archives is like transferring ownership of a car to a new proprietor but refusing to hand over the relevant operating manual. It is as if one wished him to have difficulties in using the car. Colonial powers should have handed over all colonial archives at the time of Independence to the new African governments to enable them to have full knowledge about the lands they were going to govern unless this was deliberately done to ensure their failure. How were the new leaders to know what had happened in the colonial lands in the previous hundred years and the extent of the resources and difficulties?
One can only hope that the demand by Bénin for archives would not lead to delays that would be used as excuses for proposing loans instead of outright restitution.
As we know, soldiers and others, including the notorious Mission Dakar Djibouti, who looted African artefacts in the colonial period, often donated them to museums and other public institutions. For example, the statue of Gou was donated to Musée de l'Ethnographie du Trocadero by Colonel Eugène Fonssagrives, who served in the French Army during the conquest of Dahomey. This splendid sculpture was later kept in the Musée de l’Homme, later in the Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac, and the Pavillon des Sessions. (9) Has anybody already seen the donation deed of Fonssagrives and whether it excludes removal of the statue from the museum?
Will the statue of Gou be considered at all as a looted object and therefore subject to restitution? Jean-Luc Martinez, former director of the Louvre, has, in his report, Patrimoine partagé: universalité, restitutions et circulation des œuvres d’art, spread the improbable story that the statue was not looted but had been abandoned by the Dahomeyans in their defeat and simply picked up from the ground, and therefore not among the objects looted in 1892 in the Abomey Palace of Behanzin, along with famous royal statues restituted in 2021 by France. Martinet has asserted that:
‘One of the first works that could fall into this category of "shared heritage" could be the statue of the god Gou: the history of this work tends to show that it would not meet the criteria justifying restitution (it is not a seizure because the work had been voluntarily abandoned.’ (10)
How many African artefacts donated to French museums are subject to donor clauses that make them impossible to restitute, since the law clearly excludes them from its purview if there is an explicit prohibition by the donor and he or she has not given consent to restitution? According to Martinez, this is the case of the donation made to the French State by Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière in 2018 of 36 works of African and Oceanic origin presented in a permanent exhibition space at the Musée du Quai Branly (11). This donation includes sculptures from African states, including Mali, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Liberia, Nigeria, and others. Should we start by working on the list of such donations that are excluded by the recent law?
The French legislator has given preference to the wishes of donors over the wishes and needs of the African nations from which the art objects were stolen. The morality here is amazing. One hardly needs to mention the importance of donations to French museums. It is hard to imagine now, seeing the comparatively little progress made since Independence to recover our artefacts, that the French will be willing to consider restitution from any of the donations that are estimated to be worth millions.
Sarr and Savoy comment on donations as follows:
‘French museums have traditionally relied more than others, for a long time, on donations and bequests from private collectors. At the Musée du quai Branly, the "donor" section lists a large number of names of men and women, sometimes with a first name, but this is not the rule. It is sometimes difficult to identify these donors. Elsewhere in France, some public museums owe almost all their African collections to donations from private individuals, such as Dr. Lhomme in Angoulême or Marie and Joseph Colomb in Grenoble, who chose to cede their collections to their city of origin. From time to time, donations occur several years after the death of collectors, and it is often difficult to reconstruct the conditions in which the donated pieces were acquired in Africa. Among these donors, the agents of the colonial administration (or of the diplomatic corps in African countries not colonized by France) formed a particular group: depending on their interests and skills, these personnel posted in Africa were able to form very specific collections (ancient manuscripts, prehistoric pieces) (12)
Sarr and Savoy recommended that for such donations coming from former colonial officials and their successors, the burden of proof should be put on the owners to establish the conditions under which they acquired the object and that the African owners consented. On the contrary, the new law demands a higher burden of proof from the African claimants: they must provide ’serious, precise and consistent evidence’ that leads to the presumption that the object had been misappropriated through theft, looting, violence.
The French legislator who did not want to use the word ‘colonial’ in the text of the new law thus provides against any presumption that artefacts seized in the colonial context may be presumed to have been stolen or acquired through theft, violence or without the consent of the African owner. We cannot dispute the truth of this statement by a French Member of Parliament, Mme Sophie Taillé-Polian (EcoS):
‘How can one claim to deal with the restitution of looted property without ever clearly naming the historical context – or at least one of the main historical contexts – of these spoliations? Indeed, the word "colonization" is absent, and this absence is not neutral. It constitutes a political error, a form of continuity in the denial of a part of our history. In fact, we are not only talking about ill-gotten gains, but about artefacts torn up in the context of domination, conquest and violence that is colonization. To refuse to name is to water down.’
(13)
That violence is an essential element of colonization has been emphasized by many scholars who also underscore the intrinsic link between looting of artefacts and colonization. Bandah Pangah Calvin Patrick, a Cameroonian scholar, said:
‘The looting of African cultural property was therefore only possible with the European colonial enterprise in Africa. These lootings were mainly maintained thanks to the violence of an "intrinsic relationship of extraction and extraction" (Mbembe, 2020c) which was the breeding ground for the colonial gesture. For a long time, Europeans voluntarily relegated to the calendar this essential aspect for the control and exploitation of territories under domination. It was not until the end of the colonial system that the first demands for restitution were made.’ (14)
The new law sets a higher burden of proof than the balance of probability or inner conviction, conviction intime. But then the examination by the bilateral expert committee is not a judicial process. Anyone familiar with the imbalance of power under the colonial regime would immediately recognize the extreme difficulty for Africans to provide evidence that acts of the colonial authorities or of Europeans in the colonies were illegal or done without the consent of the African peoples. Colonization was the imposition of European rules and customs on Africans. Actual violence and structural violence were the normal conditions of oppression in most colonies. Are the French now playing ignorant of the colonial situation with its inherent violence and the complete subordination and subjugation of Africans? Has France forgotten her violent colonial rule in Cameroon that was recently attested by a study by French and Cameroonian historians commissioned by President Macron? Surely, the legislators have heard of the cruel destiny of the Tirailleurs Sénégalais who fought to defend France against Nazi invaders, only to be massacred later by the French Army when they demanded payment of promised entitlements. Let us not talk about the Algerian War for Independence (1954-1962).
Former colonial subjects of France would agree with French President Macron when he declared in an interview with Echourouk News, concerning the French presence in Algeria, that "Colonization is part of French history. It is a crime, it is a crime against humanity, it is a real barbarism, and it is part of this past that we must face by also apologizing to those against whom we committed these acts. (15)
The new law on restitution is undoubtedly an improvement on the prior legal situation where the restitution of every single artefact required specific legislative authorisation. However, this new law is far below the expectations raised by President Macron in his historic declaration in Ouagadougou in 2017 and by the subsequent report by Felwine Sarr and Bénédicte Savoy, which had been commissioned by the President and raised hopes in African nations and States. The new law is clearly dominated by the spirit of the Martinez Report, which was intended to ensure that no large-scale restitution would be possible and to assure those frightened by the Sarr and Savoy report that France was not about to undo the work of the colonial regime by restituting looted African artefacts.
The new legislation is a victory for those who pretend, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that there is a lack of reliable knowledge and information about the circumstances under which African artefacts, looted by the French Army and other expeditions such as the Dakar-Djibouti Mission, were brought to France and hence the need for provenance research. Sarr and Savoy said that there was no need for further research on most African artefacts in France for the purpose of restitution. (16)
We should not be deceived about the importance of the participation of demanding States in the Joint Expert Committee. The function of this committee is to look at available evidence on the circumstances under which artefacts came into French museums and other institutions. The conclusions of the Joint Expert Committee are not binding but only advisory. When we look at the other institutions involved in the restitution procedure, the National Commission on Restitution of Cultural Objects, the Commission on Culture in the Assemblée Nationale and in the Sénat, the Conseil d’État, and the French Government, there is no African representation in any of these bodies involved in deciding the demand for restitution. Only one party to the dispute about ownership of African artefacts, the former colonial power, is represented at all levels. The whole procedure depends therefore on the wishes of one side: France. Restitution under the new law has been transformed from a political act that depended on the Government’s decision as approved by the legislature into a quasi-administrative procedure that goes through several institutions, old and new, which allows the legislature and the Conseil d’État to maintain a general oversight.
The French Minister for Culture, Catherine Pégard, knew what she was talking about when she declared at the presentation of the new law in the Assemblée Nationale that the new law is:
rigorously supervised and surrounded by strong guarantees, to return works. This option is regulated in two ways: the scope of the restitutions – the criteria that make them possible are very strictly defined by the text; Supervision of restitution procedures – Two commissions, a bilateral scientific committee and a commission in which Parliament will be represented, must give their opinion before the draft decree is itself submitted to the Council of State for its opinion, the latter having to be the guarantor of compliance with the rules laid down by the legislator. (17)
We should not allow our attention to be distracted by legal sophistry or by administrative details. The basic aim of the French ruling elite is clear: retain as long as possible as many African artefacts as we can hold and restitute a few symbolic artefacts as would pacify vociferous African elite.
Restitution de 35 nouveaux biens culturels et des archives béninoises : Cotonou mobilise ses compétences scientifiques et ses réserves intellectuelles https://www.gouv.bj/article/3587
France : le Bénin met en place un comité pour récupérer 35 nouveaux biens culturels https://lanouvelletribune.info/2026/07/france-le-benin-met-en-place-un-comite-pour-recuperer-35-nouveaux-biens-culturels/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yGB1EIsIPI
Restitution culturelle : le Bénin réclame 35 nouveaux biens conservés en France
https://notreafrik.com/restitution-culturelle-benin-35-biens-france-2026/
Le Bénin réclame à nouveau 35 œuvres et archives coloniales à la France
Le Monde Afrique: Trésors pillés : « La France doit répondre positivement à la demande du Bénin » https://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2016/08/01/tresors-pilles-la-france-doit-repondre-positivement-a-la-demande-du-benin_4977095_3212.html
2. K. Opoku, Are we receiving the restitution we seek? https://www.modernghana.com/news/1123962/are-we-receiving-the-restitution-we-seek.html
3. LOI no 2026-351 du 9 mai 2026 relatif à la restitution de biens culturels ayant fait l’objet d’une appropriation illicite (1) NOR : MICB2517755L https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/download/pdf?id=USs4DfuARvex7l7UgXv6RuZ-PkK9A6thiDb3sgQcNsM=
K. Opoku, Forwards and Backwards: France Adopts New Law on Restitution of Looted Artefact https://www.modernghana.com/news/1503609/forwards-and-backwards-france-adopts-new-law-on.html K. Opoku, Will the New French Restitution Law Lead to Release of Gou and Others from French Museums? https://www.modernghana.com/news/1426027/will-new-french-restitution-law-lead-to-release.html
4. "This new Beninese request, solidly supported on the historical, scientific, heritage and legal levels, has received a favourable reception from the French side. Far from passionate tensions, Benin has chosen the method. That of a reinvented bilateral cooperation, based on trust, mutual respect, and academic rigor through the creation of a Franco-Beninese Joint Scientific Commission. In order to conduct this highly strategic file, a National Scientific Committee composed of six (06) high-level experts was officially installed in Cotonou on July 14, 2026. A symbolic choice of date, coinciding with the national holiday of its historical partner, the French Republic '.
Dekart, Restitution des biens culturels : Le Benin réclame 35 nouvelles œuvres à la France. https://dekartcom.net/actualites/restitution-des-biens-culturels-le-benin-reclame-35-nouvelles-oeuvres-a-la-france/
5. Restitution des biens culturels : Le Bénin réclame 35 nouvelles œuvres à la France. https://dekartcom.net/actualites/restitution-des-biens-culturels-le-benin-reclame-35-nouvelles-oeuvres-a-la-france/
6. During the discussion of the new law in the French Parliament statements were made warning against wholesale restitution. M. Mickaël Bouloux (Socialistes et apparentés)
’We are frankly not in favour of this amendment, which introduces a logic of restriction contrary to the spirit of the text, the objective of which is precisely to allow situations to be examined on a case-by-case basis.’
‘The previous amendments were intended to broaden the provision. We are approaching the issue here in a slightly different way, by asking for a case-by-case assessment by the scientific committee of so-called military objects to verify that they do indeed fall into this category.’
‘It is therefore up to the scientific committee to assess on a case-by-case basis the nature of the property, its history, the conditions of its acquisition and, if necessary, the relevance of a restitution.’
For all these reasons, we propose not to restrict the scope of the goods concerned a priori, but to trust in a demanding and independent analysis, on a case-by-case basis. (Applause from the benches of the SOC Group.)
7.https://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/dyn/17/rapports/cion-cedu/l17b2628_rapport-fond 8.https://www.jstor.org/content/pdf/oa_book_monograph/j.ctv2pnjvmx?refreqid=fastly-default%3A7db3aa3baeeff628
Inconvenient Heritage Colonial Collections and Restitution in the Netherlands and Belgium, Amsterdam University Press, p.138.
Nkeh, J., & Menyong, B. W. (2025). Decolonizing Heritage: Pathways of Archival Restitution and Cultural Reparation as Catalysts for Social Justice and Indigenous Sovereignty in Africa. Journal of Historical Studies, 6(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.47941/jhs.3338 https://carijournals.org/journals/JHS/article/view/3338/3968
Vincent Bollenot Dé)construire les « archives coloniales » : enjeux, pratiques et débats contemporains https://groc.hypotheses.org/382
https://groc.hypotheses.org/author/groc/page/2
Ulrich Espédit Soglo, La restitution des archives de l’Afrique, L’Harmattan, 2026. Saliou Mbaye, Les archives en Afrique de l'Ouest : un patrimoine en mutation
http://elec.enc.sorbonne.fr/conferences/mbaye
9. Maureen Murphy, Du champ de bataille au musée : les tribulations d’une sculpture fon https://journals.openedition.org/actesbranly/213
10. Jean-Luc Martinez, https://www.culture.gouv.fr/rechercher-une-publication-du-ministere-de-la-culture/rapports/remise-du-rapport-patrimoine-partage-universalite-restitutions-et-circulation-des-aeuvres-d-art-de-jean-luc-martinez
K. Opoku, Does the Martinez Report Constitute a Pre-Announced Burial of African Cultural Artefacts in French Museums?
https://www.modernghana.com/news/1230672/does-the-martinez-report-constitute-a-pre-announce.html
11. Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac, Collection Marc Ladreit Lacharriere https://collection-lacharriere.quaibranly.fr/fr/les-oeuvreshttps://collection-lacharriere.quaibranly.fr/en/the-works
12. Felwine Sarr and Benedicte Savoy, Rapport sur la restitution du patrimoine culturel africain. Vers une nouvelle éthique relationnelle https://www.vie-publique.fr/files/rapport/pdf/194000291.pdf, p.50.
Musee du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac : Dons et Donateurs https://www.quaibranly.fr/fr/collections/vie-des-collections/nouvelles-acquisitions/dons-et-donateurs/
Les Echos, La donation, une manne pour les musées
https://www.lesechos.fr/2018/02/la-donation-une-manne-pour-les-musees-985011
13.Mme Sophie Taillé-Polian (EcoS) :
: comment peut-on prétendre traiter de la restitution de biens spoliés sans jamais nommer clairement le contexte historique – ou du moins l’un des principaux contextes historiques – de ces spoliations ? En effet, le mot « colonisation » en est absent, et cette absence n’est pas neutre. Elle constitue une erreur politique, une forme de continuité dans le déni d’une partie de notre histoire. De fait, nous ne parlons pas seulement d’objets mal acquis, mais d’artefacts arrachés dans le cadre de domination, de conquête et de violence
systémique qu’est la colonisation. Refuser de nommer, c’est édulcorer.
https://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/dyn/deputes/PA736201
14. Bandah Panga Calvin Patrick, Le désenchantement de la restitution
https://revuefrancophone.fr/index.php/home/article/view/46/35
‘Le pillage des biens culturels africains n’a donc été rendu possible qu’avec l’entrepris coloniale européenne en Afrique. Ces pillages se sont surtout maintenus grâce à la violence d’un«rapport intrinsèque de ponction et d’extraction» (Mbembe, 2020c) qui a été le terreau du geste colonial. Pendant longtemps, les Européens ont volontairement relégué à des calendres cet aspect essentiel pour la prise en main et l’exploitation des territoires sous domination. Il a fallu attendre la fin du système colonial pour assister aux premières demandes de restitution’
15. The Guardian, African Apocalypse review – startling journey into Niger's heart of darkness
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/oct/30/african-apocalypse-review
The Guardian,
France signals willingness to discuss reparations for colonial massacres in Niger. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/15/france-willingness-discuss-reparations-niger
RFI, Des regards croisés d’historiens sénégalais et français éclairent le rôle des tirailleurs africains en 1914-1918 https://www.rfi.fr/fr/afrique/20250902-des-regards-crois%C3%A9s-d-historiens-s%C3%A9n%C3%A9galais-et-fran%C3%A7ais-%C3%A9clairent-le-r%C3%B4le-des-tirailleurs-africains-en-1914-1918
Le Monde, France responsible for 'extreme violence' in Cameroon independence war, report finds
Karine Ramondy, La France au Cameroun 1945-1971, Hermann Editeurs,2025
Benjamin Stora, La guerre d'Algérie expliquée à tous, Paris, Seuil, 2012
Benjamin Stora, Les questions mémorielles portant sur la colonisation et la guerre de l’Algerie, https://www.elysee.fr/admin/upload/default/0001/09/0586b6b0ef1c2fc2540589c6d56a1ae63a65d97c.pdf
Un massacre en Kabylie », une vidéo du « Monde » – Histoire coloniale et postcoloniale https://histoirecoloniale.net/un-massacre-en-kabylie-une-video-du-monde/
Interview of Emanuel Macron TV Echourouk News : "La colonisation fait partie de l'histoire française. C'est un crime, c'est un crime contre l'humanité, c'est une vraie barbarie et ça fait partie de ce passé que nous devons regarder en face en présentant aussi nos excuses à l'égard de celles et ceux envers lesquels nous avons commis ces gestes".
Bénédicte Savoy, La restitutions des œuvres spoliées
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCyWP26Qeo0
For other European atrocities in Africa see K. Opoku, Prussian Foundation for Cultural Heritage(psk) Finally Reveals Number of Looted Human Remains It Holds https://www.modernghana.com/news/988128/prussian-foundation-for-cultural-heritagepsk.html
16. Titanic' task of finding plundered African art in French museums
K. Opoku, Do French Museums Still Need to Study Looted African Treasures?
https://www.modernghana.com/news/1315012/do-french-museums-still-need-to-study-looted-afric.html
17.Déclaration de Mme Catherine Pégard, ministre de la Culture, sur le projet de loi relatif à la restitution de biens culturels provenant d'États qui, du fait d'une appropriation illicite, en ont été privés, à l'Assemblée nationale le 13 avril 2026
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