Like Britain, France has long resisted demands to return artefacts to the countries that claim to be their rightful owners, but Emmanuel Macron has signalled a change in policy.

“I want the conditions to be created within five years for the temporary or permanent return of Africa’s heritage to Africa,” the French president said during a visit in November to Burkina Faso, a former French colony in west Africa.

African artefacts, he added, “cannot just remain in European private collections and museums.”

Mr Macron has appointed Bénédicte Savoy, a French art historian, and Felwine Sarr, a Senegalese writer, to examine how artefacts now in France may be sent to African countries that claim them.

Pascal Blanchard, a historian, said Mr Macron "made European curators quake in their boots.”

But restoring objects of immense artistic and historical value to those that claim ownership is a legal and ethical minefield. “It’s one hell of a challenge,” Ms Savoy said.