France Returns 26 Looted Artefacts to Benin Out of a Total of 5,000

The French government has returned another 26 artefacts from its collection of nearly 90,000 looted colonial treasures still held in the country. 

The latest batch of restituted artefacts was stolen 130 years ago when French troops raided the West African Kingdom of Dahomey, situated in modern-day Benin, and seized hundreds of treasures following a two-year war. The looted treasures included royal totems, wooden palace doors, statues and the throne of King Béhanzin who was forced to flee his kingdom as French soldiers advanced. 

French President Emmanuel Macron personally handed the artefacts back to the President of Benin, Patrice Talon, on Tuesday at a ceremony at the Élysée Palace in Paris. 

“You'll agree with me that the restitution of 26 artworks we are celebrating today is only a step in the ambitious process of equity and of restitution,” Talon said at the ceremony.  

“This is our soul, Mr President,” Talon added. 

The move comes as President Macron attempts to fulfil his promise to return artefacts stolen from France’s former African colonies by the end of next year. In a 2017 speech to a crowd of students at the University of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso, Macron pledged that “in the next five years, I want the conditions to be met for the temporary or permanent restitution of African heritage to Africa.” 

Macron followed up his speech by commissioning a groundbreaking report by art historian Bénédicte Savoy and the Senegalese economist Felwine Sarr. The study, which found that 90 percent of Africa’s material cultural legacy was being held outside of the continent, called for the return of “any objects taken by force or presumed to be acquired through inequitable conditions,” a devastating conclusion for museums such as the Quai Branly in Paris that alone holds tens of thousands of looted treasures. 

Still, despite the report and Macron’s pledge, only a small fraction of artefacts have found their way back to their country of origin. 

Benin’s restituted artefacts will go on display at the new Museum of the Epic of the Amazons and the Kings of Danhomè in the southern city of Abomey, the former capital of Dahomey. The Benin government hopes these 26 items will be joined by the nearly 5,000 looted treasures they have been officially requested from France.