France’s Benin Bronze Bill Approved

Cassie Packard 'After Years of Repatriation Debates, France’s Benin Bronze Bill Approved' Hyperallergic 10th Nov 2020

This month, France and the Netherlands took significant steps toward the restitution of looted colonial artifacts. In the Netherlands, the Dutch minister of culture promised policy changes in response to an official report recommending the restitution of stolen cultural property to former Dutch colonies. And in France, two years after a government-commissioned report called for sweeping restitution, the French legislature unanimously passed a landmark bill that would allow for the return of 27 important looted artifacts to Benin and Senegal. In 2017, French President Emmanuel Macron publicly promised that the country would return all looted artifacts to sub-Saharan Africa within five years. Macron’s pledge, and the 252-page restitution report that followed, were at odds with French laws and attitudes regarding the inalienability of the country’s cultural property.[...] The bill, which the French government fast-tracked in July, was unanimously approved by the National Assembly on October 6 and then by the Senate on November 4. The new law will enable the permanent return of the sword to Senegal. It will also allow for the permanent return of 26 of the Benin Bronzes, important royal artifacts that were looted from the Abomey Palace in modern-day Benin in the 19th century. The select 27 objects will be restituted within one year. The Senate additionally advocated for the formation of a national council dedicated to future restitution cases.

In the Netherlands, one day after the draft law passed through the French National Assembly, a special advisory committee on the national policy framework for colonial collections released a report commissioned by Dutch culture minister Ingrid van Engelshoven that has advised that the Netherlands recognize the injustices of owning stolen artifacts and unconditionally return “any cultural objects looted in former Dutch colonies if the source country so requests.”