President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday, April 24, a visit to Madagascar that he wanted to work for “forgiveness” for the colonization of France of the island of the Indian Ocean, even with the return of cultural artifacts.
“Our presence here is not innocent, and our history has been written (…) with deeply painful pages,” Macron said a memory ceremony in the old Royal Palace of the capital, Antananarivo. “Only you can make this forgiveness trip,” he said after a visit from the Palace with Princess Fenosa Ralandison Ratsimamanga.
“But we are creating the conditions for it, making possible (…) crying what is no longer.”
Macron highlighted the planned return of several tasks of cultural elements of the island by its French occupants, including the skull of a beheaded king in 1897 by French troops and tasks to France as a trophy.
“These human remains belong here and nowhere else,” he said. The fifth largest island in the world, known for its rich biodiversity and natural resources, but loads for high poverty, Madagascar was under the French colonial domain of 19Th Century until 1960, when he won full independence. Macron asked for a collaboration between historians from both countries so that “the truth, memory, history and reconciliation can see daylight.” The proposal is based on the historian commissions established with other territories colonized by France, such as Cameroon, Algeria, Senegal and Haiti.
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