![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The events on Wednesday signaled the start of a crucial new chapter in a process that began in 2017, when Mr. Macron’s attempt to reset relations with them even as he has tried to deflect a conservative backlash domestically. That re-examination has been particularly fraught in France, which maintained strong ties to its former colonies in Africa decades after they became officially independent. The restitution of the objects is a tangible and powerfully symbolic result of a confluence of events in Europe: a belated reckoning with its colonial past, fueled by a contemporary questioning of sexism, racism and other social inequalities. The president will complete the transfer in a signing ceremony with President Patrice Talon of Benin at the Élysée Palace, after which the treasures will permanently leave France. ![]() Macron spoke at a ceremony at the Quai Branly Museum in Paris, where the objects are on display for the last time, through Oct. PARIS - More than a century after French colonial troops ransacked a West African royal palace and took its treasures, President Emmanuel Macron of France on Wednesday began the formal transfer of 26 of those artifacts to Benin in the first large-scale act of restitution to Africa by a former European colonial power. ![]()
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