France formally returned a sacred talking drum to Ivory Coast on Friday, February 20, 2026, ending a 110-year absence that began when colonial troops seized the revered instrument from the Ebrie people in 1916, in a ceremony at the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris that marked the most symbolically charged moment yet in France’s gradual reckoning with its colonial cultural legacy.
The Djidji Ayokwe drum, more than three metres long and weighing 430 kilograms, was used by the Ebrie tribe to transmit messages across distances and is one of hundreds of objects France is preparing to send back to Africa. Its physical scale alone, the length of a small car and the weight of a grand piano, conveys the significance the Ebrie community attached to it. Far from a decorative object, the drum functioned as an acoustic telecommunications system, encoding warnings, summons, and communal announcements into rhythmic patterns that carried across the landscape.
France’s Culture Minister Rachida Dati hosted the handover alongside her Ivorian counterpart, Françoise Remarck, Minister of Culture and Francophonie of Côte d’Ivoire. “All of Ivory Coast is ready to welcome it,” Remarck said, adding that she was “extremely moved” by the “return of this symbol” that was “finally coming back to its homeland.”
Eight Years From Request to Reality
The handover Friday was the culmination of a process that stretched across nearly a decade of diplomatic negotiation, scientific research, and legislative action. In 2018, Ivory Coast officially asked Paris to return 148 works of art taken during the colonial period, including the Djidji Ayokwe. President Emmanuel Macron promised to send the drum and other artefacts back home to the west African country in 2021.
Clavaire Aguego Mobio, leader of the Ebrie, called Macron’s pledge a “highly historic move” at the time, telling Agence France-Presse that his people had long given up on the return of the drum, describing it as “our loudspeaker, our Facebook.”
The legal path required parliamentary action. France’s lower house of parliament approved removing the artefact from national museum collections to enable its return, after the upper-house Senate backed the move. A formal deposit agreement was then signed on November 18, 2024 in Paris, between the governments of Ivory Coast and France, with both Culture Ministers present. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) welcomed the agreement, noting that both countries had ratified the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property.
Major research work was initiated by French and Ivorian scientific experts, as well as representatives of the Atchans communities, following Macron’s 2021 announcement, enabling the joint process that ultimately made today’s return possible.
A New Home in Abidjan
The Djidji Ayokwe is expected to be permanently displayed in a new museum currently under construction in Abidjan, Ivory Coast’s commercial capital. France also committed to supporting the modernisation of the Musée des Civilisations de Côte d’Ivoire, where the drum will be conserved and exhibited, as part of the broader cooperation agreement signed between the two governments.
France Accelerates Broader Restitution Drive
The drum is one of hundreds of objects France is preparing to send back to Africa, with efforts set to be accelerated by the passing of a new law to authorise mass repatriations. French national museums hold tens of thousands of artworks and cultural objects acquired during the colonial period, many obtained through seizure or purchase under circumstances that former colonies have long contested. Algeria, Mali, and Benin are among the nations that have filed formal repatriation demands.
Since his election in 2017, Macron has gone further than his predecessors in acknowledging past French abuses in Africa, with the restitution of looted artworks positioned as a cornerstone of the new relationship he pledged to build with the continent. European governments more broadly have gradually begun returning select artefacts as part of wider efforts to rebuild diplomatic and cultural relations with former colonies, with Germany, Belgium, and the United Kingdom all having completed or initiated select repatriations in recent years.
For the Ebrie people and the wider population of Ivory Coast, the Djidji Ayokwe’s return after 110 years represents far more than the recovery of a historical object. It is the restoration of a voice that was silenced by force, finally permitted to speak again on its own soil.
