African museum leaders welcomed a French expert report that urges Paris to open the door to returning thousands of African artworks and cultural objects taken during the colonial era.
The recommendation, if adopted, would mark a major policy shift in France and could increase pressure on other former colonial powers facing similar restitution demands.
French law currently bars the government from permanently giving away state property, including museum holdings, even where there is strong evidence that items were looted or removed under colonial rule.
President Emmanuel Macron had already signalled a change in tone during a speech in Burkina Faso last year, saying:
"Africa's heritage cannot just be in European private collections and museums."
He later commissioned French art historian Benedicte Savoy and Senegalese writer Felwine Sarr to examine the issue. Their report was due to be presented to Macron on Friday.
According to a copy seen by AFP, the authors recommend changing French law so restitution can happen when France and an African state reach bilateral agreements. The proposal would apply especially to objects in museums that were
"transferred from their original territory during the French colonial period,"
the report said.
Sarr told French daily Liberation in an article posted late Tuesday:
"We propose changing heritage laws so that all types of cases can be taken into account, and the criteria of consent can be invoked,"
The report was greeted by campaigners who have long argued for the return of works that were bought, traded, or in some cases simply stolen.
Marie-Cecile Zinsou, who heads the Zinsou Art Foundation in Cotonou and is the daughter of Benin's former prime minister and president, said:
"Today it feels as if we're just a step away from recovering our history and being finally able to share it on the continent,"
Hamady Bocoum, director of the Museum of Black Civilization in Dakar, said the objects under debate were taken
"in the context of colonisation and subordination"
and added:
"It's a good decision that reflects the march of history."
The dispute is not new. It was pushed back into the spotlight in 2016 when Benin President Patrice Talon asked France to return items from the Palaces of Abomey, including carvings, sceptres and sacred doors from the former capital of the kingdom of Dahomey.
France refused, pointing to its rule that museums cannot permanently part with items in their collections.
The scale of the issue is significant. Of an estimated 90,000 African artworks in French museums, about 70,000 are held at Paris' Quai Branly museum, created by former president Jacques Chirac, who was known as an admirer of African and Asian art.
The report says any restitution would begin only after an African country makes a formal request based on inventory lists that France would send.
That prospect has alarmed some curators and dealers, who warn that broad returns could empty museums and galleries in parts of the West.
They argue that some objects came from kingdoms that no longer exist and that, in other cases, the items were acquired legally.
Critics also fear private French collectors could move works out of the country to avoid possible seizure.
Belgian lawyer Yves-Bernard Debie, one of the most outspoken opponents of returning works taken during the colonial era, said:
"No dealer in African art was consulted"
European conservationists have also raised practical concerns, including the risk of theft or poor handling by museums that lack experience or operate in unstable political environments.
The report's authors said, however, that art market professionals were among those consulted, alongside collectors, lawmakers, legal specialists and even sceptics.
The debate extends beyond France. Britain has also faced repeated demands to return artefacts, including the Elgin Marbles to Greece and the Benin Bronzes to Nigeria.
On Tuesday, the governor of Easter Island pleaded with the British Museum to return one of its most famous statues. The museum has kept Hoa Hakananai'a, one of the island's most important stone monoliths, for 150 years.
The French experts also pointed to major African collections elsewhere in Europe, saying Vienna's Weltmuseum holds 37,000 objects from Sub-Saharan Africa and Belgium's Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren has 180,000.
In their view, such collections deny Africans access to their own artistic and cultural inheritance. The report said that on a continent where 60 per cent of the population is under 20, young people should be able to reach their own culture, creativity and spirituality from earlier eras.
