Denouncing the "dispossession of Africa of its wealth", five activists had torn from its base a funeral pole bari of the nineteenth century, Friday, at the Quai-Branly museum in Paris. This object of this population of East and Central Africa did not a priori undergo any significant degradation.
The five individuals were quickly arrested by the police and placed in police custody for the counts of "attempted robbery of a classified movable object in assembly," said the Paris prosecutor's office, which entrusted the investigation to the police station in the 7th district. borough.
This Sunday, they were released under judicial supervision after being presented to the prosecution. They will be tried at the end of September in the Paris Criminal Court.
"We take him home"
The group had filmed and then published online the video of its action on Friday. We see one of the five men, who presents himself as a national of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, unsealing this funeral pole, helped by another, before taking him down the corridors.
Protesters in #Paris' Musée du Quai #Branly were demanding the museum to give back its artefacts to their countries of origin today. Protesters asked the Musée du Quai Branly to return its artifacts to their countries of origin today. pic.twitter.com/oXbEQqofED
- Elisa Miebach (@elisamiebach) June 12, 2020While he is being filmed, the man shouts his criticisms of France: "We have decided to recover what belongs to us". “These goods were stolen from us during colonization. We leave with our property, we take it home, "he repeats to the guards who apostrophy and try to detain them, before their arrest by the police.
The question of the restitution of African works which arrived in French public museums during the colonization is particularly sensitive and controversial. The Musée du Quai-Branly has the main collection of early African art.
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If this debate is perfectly legitimate, "it can in no way justify this type of action," said Minister of Culture, Franck Riester.
