What is a "restitution"?

Restitution is a legal process by which the State returns an object to another State, on the basis of a specific motive.

In France, objects belong to the public collections and are protected by the principles of “inalienability” and “imprescriptibility”, based on the law. In other terms, this means that they cannot be transferred or destroyed. This applies to the collections of national museums.

The Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac therefore cannot independently decide which of its objects may be returned. Until May 2026, a specific law had to be passed to derogate from the principle of inalienability and allow each item to leave the public domain. This was the process followed for the restitution of the 26 objects from Abomey in 2021, and the restitution of the Djidji Ayokwe drum in 2026, both of which had been looted during the colonial period.

Since 9 May 2026, France has a general law that clarifies and facilitates the process for returning cultural property that was unlawfully appropriated.

What does the framework law adopted on 9 May 2026 provide for?

The law provides for the restitution of objects that were unlawfully appropriated, for the purpose of allowing the requesting States to reclaim fundamental elements of their heritage.

For a request to be relevant, and according to the law, it must:

How does the restitution process work?

The law sets out several steps in the restitution process:

Each year, the Government submits to Parliament a report on restitution requests from foreign states, the progress of their handling, and any decisions made to remove items from the public domain during the preceding year. The Government must also promote strengthened cultural, scientific, and museological cooperation between France and requesting states, before or after any restitution.

What is the museum's view of this new law?

The museum welcomes the adoption of this law.

It is the result of years of consultation to which the museum contributed significantly — through the Sarr-Savoy report (2018), the Martinez report (2023), and various Government and Parliamentary discussions.

The outcome is satisfactory: it streamlines a process that previously required individual laws for each case, while maintaining scientific and institutional rigor. The scientific committee will also enable genuine collaborative research around the items concerned.

The museum will continue to support these processes before (through provenance research and collaborative restoration) and after (through joint reflection on future museums that will receive these works, and on their circulation) restitutions.

What is the museum's role under this law?

The museum will continue its work in this area with its means.

It will continue documenting the provenance of its collections — a dedicated team of three full-time staff works alongside specialist curators who integrate this dimension into all their projects. The museum will also maintain its proactive approach of welcoming foreign museum professionals and giving them access to its collections, both before and throughout any restitution process. Finally, the museum will remain available to public authorities to support these processes in full transparency, alerting them to objects that may fall within the scope of the law and contributing to the discussions if relevant.

What approach does the museum take to accompanying restitutions?

The museum incorporates these processes within a partnership and collaborative framework.

For instance, the restitution of the Djidji Ayokwe drum to Côte d'Ivoire in February 2026 is the result of a four year collaboration, which included the invitation of the Ivorian authorities and Atchan communities to the museum, the joint restoration of the object, the residence at the quai Branly museum of the Abidjan Museum, as well as collaboration around mediation. This dialogue allowed the process to reach its conclusion peacefully, and now opens the door to new forms of cooperation.

How can one determine whether a work was unlawfully acquired?

This is what is now called "provenance research" — documenting an object's history from its creation to its current location, with particular attention to items from colonial contexts or affected by illicit trafficking. Rigorous research is conducted on each object by researchers and museum professionals from both the countries of origin and France, working collaboratively. Results determine whether an item was acquired licitly, illicitly, or under uncertain circumstances.

Where does provenance research stand at the museum?

Provenance documentation covers the museum's entire collections — over 380,000 works from every continent. The museum has conducted 13,000 in-depth traceability studies on priority objects, which were made available only. Given the scale of the task, priority has been given to items linked to restitution requests from foreign States.

This work is conducted with professionals and communities from the countries of origin. Recent examples include residencies for the director of the National Museum of Mali Daouda Keita (2022) and the Ethiopian university professor Sisaye Sahile Beyene, (2024), both of whom worked on the Dakar-Djibouti mission (1931–1933), which led to a collaborative exhibition in 2025.

The museum also participates in the Franco-German Provenance Research Fund (created in 2023), and is currently co-leading the PROBAMA project with the Hamburg Museum, the National Museum of Mali, and the Frobenius Institute, researching Bamana/Bambara objects collected between 1880 and 1914.

Will all objects from the African continent held at the museum be returned?

The majority of the 70,000 sub-Saharan African objects held at the museum were acquired licitly, through purchases or donations. Where doubt exists, careful examination and research are ongoing. When objects with doubtful or illicit provenance are identified, the museum alerts the Ministry of Culture to determine the appropriate course of action in consultation with the countries of origin.

What restitution requests has the museum received to date?

Since President Macron's Ouagadougou speech in November 2017, the museum has received restitution requests from Benin (2017), Côte d'Ivoire (2018), Ethiopia (2019), Chad (2019), Senegal (2019), and Mali (2020).

Two restitutions have since been completed: 26 works from Abomey to Benin in November 2021, and the Djidji Ayokwe drum to Côte d'Ivoire in 2026.

May 2026