When the French government returned — and
Algeria accepted — the skulls of 24 people taken as trophies during France’s
brutal colonial rule, both nations celebrated the powerful gesture as a
milestone in their efforts to rebuild ties.
اضافة اعلان
The remains, part
of one of Europe’s biggest skull collections at the Musée de l’Homme, or Museum
of Mankind, in Paris, were presented by the Algerian government as “resistance
fighters”, national heroes in Algeria for their sacrifice in chasing out French
colonizers.
As recently as this
month, when France’s Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne arrived in Algiers for a
two-day visit, her Algerian counterpart, Aymen Benabderrahmane, expressed his
satisfaction with the repatriation, which took place in 2020.
But documents from
the museum and the French government, which were recently obtained by The New
York Times, show that while six of the skulls returned were those of resistance
fighters, the rest were not or were of uncertain origin. And all have remained
France’s property even after they were handed over. Neither government has
publicly acknowledged those facts as they seek to wring diplomatic benefit from
the restitution.
The flawed return,
whatever its intention, has instead emerged as an example of what several
French academics and lawmakers say is a broader problem of often secretive,
muddled and politically expedient repatriations by France that have fallen
short of ambitions to right colonial-era wrongs.
“Diplomatic matters
prevailed over historical matters,” said Catherine Morin-Dessailly, a
center-right French senator who has long worked on restitutions of remains.
“It was botched,
done on the sly.”
Algeria’s
government did not respond to requests for comment, and it remains unclear why
it accepted some skulls that were not those of resistance fighters, especially
as it has been strongly critical of aspects of President Emmanuel Macron of
France’s policy toward the country, at least until a recent thaw.
Macron’s office
declined to comment, redirecting questions to the foreign ministry, which said
that the list of the returned skulls had been “approved by the two parties”.
Indeed, the bones
were returned under an agreement signed by the two governments on June 26,
2020, that included a four-page appendix detailing the remains’ identities.
Among them, the document obtained by the Times showed, were imprisoned thieves
and three Algerian infantrymen who actually served in the French army.
At a time when
France is trying to reshape its relationship with Africa, in part through
commitments to repatriate colonial-era artworks and remains, some academics and
legislators have grown increasingly concerned over restitutions that seem to
escape scientific and legislative rigor.
The French foreign
ministry said that the government planned to work on a sweeping law to regulate
future returns. But Macron’s parliamentary majority rejected a proposal by
senators to establish a scientific advisory council on restitutions. The
government has yet to examine a bill to facilitate the return of remains, which
was passed by the Senate in January. And Macron’s coalition in Parliament did
not endorse a bill, put forward last week by a leftist lawmaker, to return all
the Algerian skulls.
The flawed return, whatever its intention, has instead emerged as an example of what several French academics and lawmakers say is a broader problem of often secretive, muddled and politically expedient repatriations by France that have fallen short of ambitions to right colonial-era wrongs.
The scale of the
problem remains largely obscured, particularly when it comes to human remains;
the Museum of Mankind has nearly 18,000 remains from around the world.
A confidential
report produced by the museum in 2018, obtained by the Times, confirmed that it
held hundreds of “potentially litigious” remains that could be requested in the
future.
They include bones
belonging to the wife of the founder of the 19th-century Toucouleur Empire of
West Africa, remains of a Sudanese warlord who ruled over part of Chad in the
1890s, and the bones of a family of Canadian Inuits exhibited in a “human zoo”
in Paris in 1881.
“It’s the skeleton
in the closet,” Pierre Ouzoulias, a French senator from the Communist Party,
said.
“No one knows how
to get out of this.”
The existence of
the Algerian skulls first came to light in the early 2010s, when Ali Farid
Belkadi, an Algerian historian, started researching at the Museum of Mankind.
Dated from early
human history to the 20th century, the museum’s skulls were collected during
archaeological digs and colonial campaigns, and were once prized by scientists
exploring racial differences. They include dozens of West African tribal
chiefs, Native Americans and Cambodian rebels.
Belkadi discovered
that the museum still had skulls of resistance fighters and civilians beheaded
during France’s 19th-century conquest of Algeria. Kept in cardboard boxes, they
included resistance leaders from the battle of Zaatcha, a village that French
troops violently crushed in 1849. The heads were displayed on poles and later
taken back to France as war trophies.
Belkadi described
the find as a “monstrous discovery, which spoke volumes about colonial
barbarism”.
He and others
campaigned for years for the repatriation of the fighters’ remains. In 2017,
after Algerian authorities said that they wanted them back, Macron announced
that he had approved “the restitution of the Algerian martyrs’ skulls” A
French-Algerian committee was set up to identify the remains that could be
returned.
It was a key step
in Macron’s efforts to reconcile with Algeria through symbolic acts of
recognition of French colonial crimes.
But it also meant
stepping onto sensitive ground.
Unlike other
countries, such as Germany, France has never articulated a clear policy
regarding its collections of colonial-era remains, according to the Senate
report. Only about 20 sets of remains have been returned over the past two
decades, to countries such as South Africa or New Zealand, after years of stiff
resistance.
Part of the reason
is that objects in French public collections are considered France’s property
and cannot change ownership unless the return is voted into law — a cumbersome
and time-consuming process.
But Klara Boyer-Rossol, a historian who has studied remains
from Madagascar, said that despite recent efforts for more transparency, the
skull collections at the Museum of Mankind were kept under “a certain opacity”
out of fear that research could open the floodgates for restitution requests
and cast a harsh light on France’s colonial legacy.
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