France’s National Assembly unanimously approved a bill on April 13 to return artifacts looted from its former colonies during the colonial era, specifically between 1815 and 1972.
The French Senate passed this bill on Jan. 29. Since then, many countries, such as Benin, Algeria and Mali, submitted or renewed requests for artifacts.
Advanced Placement (AP) Art History College Preparation World History teacher Lisa Tellers informs her students about looted artworks. Artworks like the Benin Plaques, which were stolen and dispersed across foreign museums, are also part of the AP Art History curriculum.
“In AP Art History, when it comes to Africa, I definitely talk about the plaques of Benin,” Tellers said. “A lot of African art was taken out during the time of imperialism, and those particular pieces have shown up in the Louvre, they’ve shown up in the British Museum and other places around the world.”
This action is not the first of its kind in Europe, and these sentiments have existed for centuries. In 2021, for example, France returned 26 artworks that were stolen by French colonial soldiers in Benin. In 2017, French President Emmanuel Macron pledged to make the return of African artifacts a top priority for France during his five-year term. Dating even further back, in 1861, French author Victor Hugo condemned France and England’s looting of China’s Summer Palace and expressed hopes that one day France will “return this booty to despoiled China.”
“[Returning artifacts] shows diplomacy,” Tellers said. “It shows that we’re talking with each other and making attempts to respect each other’s cultures. No matter who you look at in history…we’ve seen goods and bads, but I think having conversations and diplomatic relationships about art, shows that we’re taking steps to be very civil with each other, which I hope that’s [the] direction we go in.”
Nonetheless, there are various issues that come with returning artifacts.
“When you repatriate items back to a country, you have to know that they have the infrastructure and they have the proper places to store the items,” Tellers said. “For some artifacts in history, they have to be temperature controlled, they have to be protected. You have to make sure that that country is going to take good care of it. How do you know that they’re going to take good care of it? Who’s to say that someone in that country who’s extremely wealthy might keep it just for [themselves]?”
Tellers notes that it is significant for a nation to possess its own cultural artifacts.
“I think artifacts from countries are a form of nationalism,” Tellers said. “It’s a sense of pride. It’s a sense of a story about them in the past that’s real.”
