France’s lower house has overwhelmingly approved a bill to ease the return of artworks and artefacts looted during the colonial era, paving the way to address restitution requests from countries including Mali, Algeria and Benin.
Issued on:
2 min Reading time
French lawmakers on Monday passed a bill to simplify the return of artworks looted during the colonial era to their countries of origin.
France still has in its possession tens of thousands of artworks and other prized artefacts that it looted from its colonial empire.
The draft legislation to return them was unanimously approved by the lower house National Assembly late on Monday.
The Senate – France’s upper house – had unanimously passed the measure in January.
President Emmanuel Macron has made it a political promise to return the cultural items, and has gone further than his predecessors in admitting past French abuses in Africa.
France hands stolen colonial-era ‘talking drum’ back to Côte d’Ivoire
Speaking on a visit to the Burkinabé capital 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 artifacts of African cultural heritage within five years.
Designed to streamline the process, Monday’s bill specifically targets property acquired between 1815 and 1972.
Hindered by legislation
Former colonial powers in Europe have slowly been moving to send back some artworks obtained during their imperial conquests – but France is hindered by its current legislation, which requires every item in the national collection to be voted on individually.
France has been flooded with restitution demands, including from Algeria, Mali and Benin.
In 2025, France’s parliament approved the return to Côte d’Ivoire of a “talking drum” that colonial troops took from the Ebrie tribe in 1916. It was returned home in March.
How an RFI investigation helped return an ancient treasure to Benin
The bill has faced political wrangling in France, with the hard-left France Unbowed party (LFI) arguing that its scope should be extended The far-right National Rally party, on the other hand, wants to limit the restitution of colonial-era art only to states which have “cordial” relations with France.
A series of coups in west Africa have brought several military juntas hostile to Paris into power in former French colonies in recent years.
In 2023, France adopted two so-called framework laws to return objects into two categories: one for goods looted from Jewish families during World War II, and another for the repatriation of human remains from public collections.
(with AFP)
