Criteria for damages based on “illegal” and “wrongful” acquisition of a cultural object, the establishment of a scientific committee that will express public opinion before the case goes to court, as well as guarantees of the respective states of full repatriation, suggest, among other things, a report on France’s policy on the return of cultural heritage, which was made public yesterday.

The report, commissioned by former Louvre director Jean-Luc Martinez and commissioned by French President Emmanuel Macron, appears to have as its end goal the creation of a broader policy of repatriation from France. Some of his recommendations have already been approved by the French government, while those relating to art looted by the Nazis are due to be debated by the French Senate at the end of May. Other proposals concern objects from the former colonies of Western empires and human remains.

However, as Martinez told the Art Newspaper, few French museum exhibits are eligible for the proposed repatriation terms. “Among the 85,000 objects examined by the Quai Branly Museum, only 300 are problematic,” said the former director of the Louvre. However, the key point of his report is the acceleration of repatriation procedures, which take years under the current legislation.

According to Art Newspaper, the exhibition is the first organized attempt to formulate a common repatriation policy at the European level. The eventual acceptance of his proposals by the French National Assembly has been described by pundits as a potential means of putting pressure on institutions such as the British Museum. “The collections of French museums do not belong to the state, but to the nation, and the former is only their custodian,” Martinez said, adding: “This is a big difference between France and other Western countries, where each museum can decide such issues for itself.”