French museum chief hits back at call to return African art

News 24

The head of France’s greatest collection of African art hit back Tuesday at a report urging the return of thousands of artworks to the countries from which they were taken.

Stephane Martin, of the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum in Paris, which holds more than two-thirds of the 90 000 African treasures in French public collections, told AFP the report had tainted “everything that was collected and bought during the colonial period with the impurity of the colonial crime.” …Read More

Pictured: Artefacts in the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum collection