A French government official has said that the decision to give three ancient artefacts to the government of Ethiopia is a diplomatic handover rather than an act of restitution.
The French foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot gave at the weekend (30 November) two prehistoric stone axes, called bifaces, and a stone cutter to Ethiopia's tourism minister Selamawit Kassa, during a visit to the national museum in Addis Ababa. The objects, among a haul of 3,500 items, are stored at the French embassy in the Ethiopian capital.
"This is a handover, not a restitution, in that these objects have never been part of French public collections,” Laurent Serrano, culture advisor at the French Embassy in Ethiopia, told Arab News.
“These artefacts, which date back between one and two million years, were found during excavations carried out over several decades at a site near the Ethiopian capital,” he added. The objects were removed from the Melka Kunture site south of Addis Ababa.
It is unclear if other artefacts are due to be returned to the Ethiopian government (the French foreign ministry was contacted for comment). Barrot also announced a new €7m project called “Sustainable Heritage in Ethiopi” aimed at restoring historic sites, according to entrevue.fr.
According to the French foreign ministry website, the two countries are also co-operating on other joint projects such as the renovation of the cave churches of Lalibela, a Unesco World Heritage Site in northern Ethiopia known for its churches carved out of rock in the 12th and 13th centuries. In 2021, rebel forces from Ethiopia’s Tigray region took control of the ancient site.
On the restitution front, meanwhile, there is frustration about the lack of progress since President Emmanuel Macron of France announced his revolutionary plan to return African heritage to the continent in November 2017. No date has yet been fixed for a bill on colonial items to be debated in the French National Assembly.