In 2006, Neil MacGregor, then director of the British Museum, confidently asserted “repatriation is yesterday’s question”. He was speaking against the backdrop of a loan of historic east African artefacts to the National Museums of Kenya. MacGregor argued that circulating historic artefacts in such a way made issues of ownership redundant. At the time, others disagreed; 12 years later, the question is emphatically today’s.

In the context of acrimonious debate over immigration, globalisation, sovereignty, history, race and historic injustice, it was only a matter of time before a new generation of activists turned to museums. Now they have. Two weeks ago, Rapa Nui (Easter Island) elders and representatives visited the British Museum, seeking the return of one of its most famous statues. While campaigners from Australia have focused on artefacts in Cambridge and London associated with Captain Cook’s contacts with Aboriginal people at Botany Bay, the Republic of Benin has requested the return of works looted from the Royal Palaces of Abomey by colonial armies in 1892, held in the Musée du quai Branly — Jacques Chirac, France’s national institution for world art.

French legal frameworks were thought to exclude the possibility of repatriation of objects in the national collections. President Emmanuel Macron, who described colonialism as a “crime against humanity” during his election campaign, shattered this understanding late last year. In an address in Burkina Faso he announced “the temporary or definitive restitution of African cultural heritage to Africa” was a priority. Last month an official report went further calling for a change in the law paving the way for a return of artworks.