France returns looted human remains to former colony
France has returned to Madagascar three human skulls looted during the colonial era and kept for more than a century at a Paris museum.
Among the remains handed over at a ceremony hosted by the French Culture Ministry in Paris on Tuesday was a skull believed to be that of a Malagasy king, Toera.
King Toera, ruler of the Menabe kingdom and leader of the Sakalava ethnic group, was killed and decapitated in August 1897 when French troops stormed Ambiky, the regional capital in western Madagascar, during a campaign to tighten colonial control. His skull was taken to Paris, where it has remained for 128 years in the archives of the National Museum of Natural History.
“At the request of Madagascar, we are returning 3 Sakalava skulls, including the one presumed to be that of King Toera,” French Culture Minister Rachida Dati posted on X, calling the move a “historic moment for France and Madagascar.”
“These skulls entered the national collections in circumstances that clearly violated human dignity and in a context of colonial violence,” AFP also quoted Dati as saying at the ceremony.
Madagascan Culture Minister Volamiranty Donna Mara hailed the repatriation as a “significant gesture,” adding that their absence had been “an open wound in the heart of our island.”
The handover marked the first restitution of human remains since France adopted a law in 2023 to facilitate such returns, and fulfills a pledge made by French President Emmanuel Macron during his April visit to Antananarivo, the East African nation’s capital, Dati said. During the visit, Macron reportedly spoke of seeking “forgiveness” for France’s “bloody and tragic” colonization of Madagascar, which gained independence in 1960.
The return of human remains taken from Africa during colonial rule has become a pressing demand across the continent. The French National Museum of Natural History reportedly holds over 23,000 human remains in its collections, amassed during the colonial era for anthropological study.
In 2020, Paris returned to Algeria the skulls of 24 resistance fighters taken as 19th-century war trophies, after years of pressure from Algerian historians.
