The adoption of a draft law by France to facilitate the restitution of looted artworks and artifacts marks a major legal advancement, but also has its temporal limits, said an advisor to the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities on Tuesday.
On April 13, the French National Assembly passed the draft law with 170 votes in favor and none against.
For years, Egypt has relied on legal tools, diplomatic negotiations, and increased cooperation with museums to recover its antiquities that left its territory illegally. This new law could accelerate certain cases, particularly with French institutions.
Zahi Hawass, former Egyptian Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, recalled his efforts to recover his country's stolen artifacts and expressed his plan to demand that France return a planetarium located at the Louvre Museum.
"This step taken by France was preceded by a national campaign that I personally led, in which I announced to the entire world that it is a national campaign to recover our stolen objects. First of all, we will request from France the restitution of the planetarium currently located at the Louvre Museum. This planetarium was stolen from the Dendera Temple in southern Egypt and was sold to the Louvre Museum," he said.
Sally El-Sabbahi, a cultural heritage management and policy consultant for the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, hailed the adoption of the law as a "legal breakthrough".
"It is important to view this as a legal breakthrough because it is a success in that sense, because it's now providing a permanent framework for countries to request the return of their objects from France. Prior to this, the practice was that often objects had to be requested at a higher diplomatic level between the two countries and then would pass an individual vote through the French parliament," she said.
In the meatime, she also noted that those covered in the bill are artworks and artifacts "illicitly acquired" by France between 1815 and 1972 through theft, looting, transfers or gifts obtained by force, violence, or from someone without the right to dispose of it.
"However, we have to actually look at the reality of how this might play out. And that's because the French law dictates a very strategic, a very particular time frame for objects to be restituted or the request for those objects to be restituted. And that begins in 1815 and ends in 1972. In the case of a country like Egypt, that's a very, very important differentiator because it excludes the Napoleonic campaign, during which the majority of the objects that now reside in public holdings in France were removed from Egypt. So countries like Egypt and other African countries to which this law will be most applicable to are really going to have to be testing the boundaries strategically of how this law will play out," she said.
Between political advances and persistent resistance, the path to restitution remains long. But for Egypt, as for other African countries, each recovered object surpasses its material value. It becomes a symbol: that of a recovered memory, a reappropriated history, and a reconstructed identity after decades of dispersion.
France's artwork restitution bill marks legal breakthrough but has limits: Egyptian consultant
France's artwork restitution bill marks legal breakthrough but has limits: Egyptian consultant
