The ‘Restitution Report’ – First Reactions in Academia, Museums, and Politics 1 by Margareta von Oswald This blog contribution was published on Dec 18, 2018 on: https://blog.uni-koeln.de/gssc-humboldt/the-restitution-report/ This review gives an overview of the first reactions to the so-called ‘restitution report’ handed in to French president Emmanuel Macron on Nov 23, 2018 by Felwine Sarr and Bénédicte Savoy 2 . The debate and reactions in politics, museums, academia, but also from the art market have been polarized and emotionally charged. Starting with first reactions in France, the review then gives an overview of the official responses by museums and politics in different European and African national contexts. After that, it attempts to resume how the report has been debated, challenged, and commented, notably in academia. Due to the quantity and speed of publications and reactions in circulation, this review can only present a selection of arguments and articles. In France, the possibly most important response to the report came from the French president himself. Emmanuel Macron announced, shortly after the report’s release, the restitution of 26 objects to the Republic of Benin, as well as an international conference to take place in Paris in April 2019. At the same time, the French president also distanced himself from some of the report’s recommendations. As such, he announced that in the first rounds of restitutions, which are supposed to take place in 2019, Macron excluded objects obtained during scientific expeditions, contrary to what Sarr and Savoy suggested. 3 The initiative was included last week in the requests by the Gilets Jaunes, asking for the ‘return of objects badly acquired from the African peoples’, in what has been described as the ‘official charter’ of the Gilets Jaunes 4 . Stéphane Martin, director of the Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac, welcomed the first gesture of restitution. However, in his official response to the report itself, Martin claimed to be rather in favour of circulation of collections than of restitution. Martin criticized the authors for how they defined collections open to restitution. He stated that marking ‘all that was collected and bought during the colonial period’ with ‘the impurity of colonial crime’ was historically incorrect. He equally criticized the suggestion of setting up ‘mixed’ commissions, meaning, Franco-African commissions, to deal with the respective requests for restitution. He stated that ‘[i]t would be a huge overhaul of French law for a foreign state to have equal footing with the French nation in determining what is rightfully or not a part of its own heritage’. Finally, and possibly most representative of the debate in France, he stated that the report ‘sidelines museums in favour of specialists in historical reparations’. He said that restitution ‘cannot be the only way, otherwise we will empty European museums’, fearing 1 Notes: The article originates from the preparations for the talk ‘The Restitution Report. What’s at stake?’, which Larissa Förster and myself prepared for the conference ‘Sensitive Heritage – Ethnographic Museums and Material/Immaterial Restitutions’ at the Grassi Museum Leipzig, 12 till 13 December 2018. All translations from German and French to English by the author. 2 The restitution report ist available in French and English: http://restitutionreport2018.com/ 3 Vincent Noce, ‘French President Emmanuel Macron calls for international conference on the return of African artefacts’, The Art Newspaper, 26.11.2018, https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/french-president-emmanuel- macron-calls-for-international-conference-on-the-return-of-african-artefacts 4 https://www.lelibrepenseur.org/la-charte-officielle-des-25-revendications-des-gilets-jaunes/, published 05.12.2018