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I rarely have reasons to be proud of France these days, but this is definitely one.
France's parliament just voted - unanimously, 170 votes to 0 - a law that institutionalizes the restitution of cultural artifacts looted during the colonial era (the law covers a massive 157-year period).
It's going absolutely viral in Chinese social media because of this speech 👇 by MP @JPatrierLeitus who noted in Parliament that it included items stolen to China during the joint British-French sack of the Summer Palace in 1860.
Patrier-Leitus cites Victor Hugo's famous 1861 letter to Captain Butler, the British officer who wrote to him seeking his endorsement of the expedition - and got the exact opposite.
Hugo wrote (whole letter here: yuanmingyuan.eu/en/the-looting…):
"One day two bandits entered the Summer Palace. One plundered, the other burned. Victory can be a thieving woman, or so it seems. The devastation of the Summer Palace was accomplished by the two victors acting jointly. Mixed up in all this is the name of Elgin, which inevitably calls to mind the Parthenon. What was done to the Parthenon was done to the Summer Palace, more thoroughly and better, so that nothing of it should be left. All the treasures of all our cathedrals put together could not equal this formidable and splendid museum of the Orient. It contained not only masterpieces of art, but masses of jewelry. What a great exploit, what a windfall! One of the two victors filled his pockets; when the other saw this he filled his coffers. And back they came to Europe, arm in arm, laughing away. Such is the story of the two bandits.
We Europeans are the civilized ones, and for us the Chinese are the barbarians. This is what civilization has done to barbarism.
Before history, one of the two bandits will be called France; the other will be called England. But I protest, and I thank you for giving me the opportunity! the crimes of those who lead are not the fault of those who are led; Governments are sometimes bandits, peoples never.
The French empire has pocketed half of this victory, and today with a kind of proprietorial naivety it displays the splendid bric-a-brac of the Summer Palace. I hope that a day will come when France, delivered and cleansed, will return this booty to despoiled China.
Meanwhile, there is a theft and two thieves. I take note.
This, Sir, is how much approval I give to the China expedition."
Hugo's letter is so revered in China that a bronze bust of him stands today at the Summer Palace ruins - I believe the only instance of a Westerner honored in China at the site of his own country's crime.
A powerful testament of how much a single act of intellectual honesty can redeem, if not a nation, then at least a name.
Hugo was also prescient: as Patrier-Leitus notes, that day "when France, delivered and cleansed, will return this booty to despoiled China" has indeed come (even though the "delivered and cleansed" part is, overall, pretty questionable in the current context).
This new law doesn't only concern China and the Summer Palace: it concerns ALL stolen artifacts by France during the period ranging between November 1815 and April 1972 - corresponding to the start of the second French colonial empire to the entry into force of the UNESCO convention on cultural property.
It's a massive scope: 157 years, thousands of objects and dozens of nations with potential claims. It's France reckoning with its colonial past in an unprecedented way and the fact ALL of France's MPs voted in favor of the law, without a single exception, is also pretty remarkable.
Hopefully this will also serve as a signal to other countries, especially the UK - the other "bandit" in Hugo's letter.
There is this Chinese saying from the Zuo Zhuan (左传), one of the foundational Confucian classics:
"To err and be able to correct it - there is no greater virtue." ("过而能改，善莫大焉", "guò ér néng gǎi, shàn mò dà yān").
France, with this law, proved its virtue.
Jérémie Patrier-Leitus@JPatrierLeitus
« Un jour viendra où la France, délivrée et nettoyée, renverra ce butin à la Chine pillée. » Ce jour, qu’appelait Victor Hugo de ses vœux en 1861, est venu. 🇫🇷Cette loi vient inscrire dans notre droit un cadre clair, cohérent et précis pour la restitution des biens culturels.
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