France’s parliament on Thursday definitively adopted legislation to simplify the return of artworks looted during the colonial era to their countries of origin.
It comes as President Emmanuel Macron, who has gone further than his predecessors in admitting France’s colonial-era abuses, is set to embark on a new tour of Africa on Saturday.
France still holds tens of thousands of artworks and other prized artefacts that it looted from its colonial empire.
After unanimous backing from the French parliament’s lower house on Wednesday and the upper house on Thursday, lawmakers cleared the way to deliver on a pledge Macron made to young Africans during a speech in Burkina Faso’s capital Ouagadougou in 2017.
“This is a historic moment,” said Culture Minister Catherine Pegard, praising France’s decision to “turn a new page” in its history.
Centrist senator Catherine Morin-Desailly, who has championed the bill, said it “opens a path where memory is no longer confiscated but shared, where the wounds of history become the foundations of a renewed dialogue between nations”.
Speaking in Ouagadougou shortly after taking office in 2017, Macron vowed that France would never again interfere in its former colonies and promised to facilitate the return of African cultural heritage within five years.
Former colonial powers in Europe have slowly moved to send back some artworks obtained during their imperial conquests.
But France was hindered by legislation requiring every item in the national collection to be voted on individually.
The new bill allows the government to return works of art without having to resort to passing piecemeal laws.
It specifically targets assets acquired between 1815 and 1972.
France has been flooded with restitution requests, including from Algeria, Mali and Benin, and once the legislation is enacted more demands are expected to arrive.
In 2025, France’s parliament approved the return to Ivory Coast of a “talking drum” that colonial troops took from the Ebrie tribe in 1916. It was returned home in March.
In 2023, France adopted two so-called framework laws to return objects in two categories: one for goods looted from Jewish families during World War II, and another for the repatriation of human remains from public collections.
