France Returns Looted ‘Talking Drum’ to Côte d’Ivoire

Overview

• In a Friday ceremony at Paris’s Musée du Quai Branly, officials marked the handover attended by Ivorian culture minister Françoise Remarck and French culture minister Rachida Dati.
• The Djidji Ayokwe, taken by French colonial authorities in 1916 from the Atchan/Ebrié people, was used to relay messages across villages, including warnings about troop recruitment drives.
• France’s parliament approved a special law in 2025 to authorize this transfer because items in national public collections are legally inalienable, and a new bill seeks to end the need for object‑by‑object legislation.
• The drum, about 10 feet long and roughly 940 pounds with carved motifs including a leaping leopard, had been housed at the Musée du Quai Branly and is slated for permanent display at Abidjan’s Museum of Civilizations.
• Lawmakers in France have advanced broader restitution measures following President Emmanuel Macron’s pledge, as Côte d’Ivoire and other African nations press claims for hundreds of colonial‑era objects.