The National Assembly again unanimously adopted on Wednesday May 6 the bill to facilitate the restitution of works of art looted during colonization, a final vote before the final adoption Thursday in the Senate of this highly anticipated text in Africa.
“The moment is historic,” declared the Minister of Culture, Catherine Pgard, recalling the long legislative journey of the text which concretizes a promise by Emmanuel Macron made to African youth during a speech in Ouagadougou in 2017. The unanimity of the 141 deputies was “essential, so that it is indeed the united voice of France which addresses the world,” she greeted.
Because more than a legislative tool facilitating the removal of French collections of illicitly acquired goods when they are claimed by their country or people of origin, this text is intended as “an outstretched hand” towards formerly colonized countries. With the stated objective of promoting “the renewal of relations”, at a time when France has largely lost its influence on the continent, particularly in the Sahel, and where Emmanuel Macron is undertaking a new African tour from Saturday.
The text adopted Wednesday by the Assembly was the subject of an agreement between deputies and senators. It plans to allow the government to return works, by decree, without having to resort to specific laws piecemeal, a procedure that has until now been very slow and restricted by the parliamentary calendar.
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“A simple posture or imposture”
This framework law provides for several criteria, in particular to ensure the illicit nature or not of the appropriation, and the obligatory consultation of two commissions, one scientific, the other where Parliament will be represented, for opinion. The text only covers property acquired between 1815 and 1972, including the second French colonial empire and the entry into force of a UNESCO convention.
The National Rally welcomed the fact that these time limits had not been widened, as the left argued. The far-right group, however, regrets the absence of conditions linking these restitutions to guarantees of “good conservation”, according to its deputy Florence Joubert. For the minister, this provision added by the deputies at first reading but removed from the version adopted during the agreement with the Senate would have undermined the sovereignty of the States and weakened its symbolic and political significance.
Environmentalists welcomed a text “which allows us to look” colonial history “in the face” and the integration of a new objective into the missions of French museums, that of researching the provenance of their goods. Because to be able to claim, it is still necessary to know what was taken illicitly, pleaded the left group, demanding means for this mission, without which this law would be “a simple posture or an imposture”, according to Jean-Claude Raux.
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Originally published at Almouwatin.com
