After Benin, Guinea is demanding from France the return of its cultural property taken during colonization.

Guinea joins other African countries engaged in the recovery of their cultural heritage held in France. In mid-June 2026, the Guinean Ministry of Culture presented an official restitution request to its French counterpart, mainly focusing on manuscripts and objects related to the history of resistance against colonization.

At the heart of this endeavor is the Quran of Almamy Samory Touré, stored in the reserves of the Army Museum in Paris. A Guinean delegation led by the Minister of Culture, Moussa Moïse Sylla, was able to consult the manuscript during a visit to Les Invalides in June.

The religious document contains several Quranic commentaries and is said to have accompanied Samory Touré, the founder of the Wassoulou empire, in his struggle against the advancing French colonial troops.

Guinea is also seeking to recover several personal effects attributed to the war chief, including his hat, fly whisk, and a combat tunic. These items are said to have been seized by the French army after his capture in 1898, before his exile to Gabon, where he died in 1900.

The initiative undertaken by Conakry marks the first official request of this nature since that made in 1968 by President Ahmed Sékou Touré. On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Guinea’s independence, the leader had requested from France the Quran, the saber, and the boubou of Samory Touré.

A request centered on written heritage

Unlike several African procedures primarily focused on statues, royal attributes, or ritual objects, the Guinean request mainly targets books and manuscripts. Guinean authorities particularly want to identify historical texts scattered across French museums, libraries, and archival holdings. African literature specialist Elara Bertho and geographer Fabrice Argounès have been tasked with locating and cataloging these documents.

Research has already identified several correspondences from Alpha Yaya Diallo in the archives of the French explorer Aimé Olivier de Sanderval in Caen. Alpha Yaya Diallo, former king of Labé and a figure of resistance in Fouta-Djalon, died in exile in Mauritania in 1912. Another piece was found in a media library in Charente-Maritime. It is a set of Quranic commentaries presented as war booty dating from 1893 and attributed to Kémoko Bilali Kourouma, a military chief of Samory Touré’s army.

The request comes at a time when the legal context has become more favorable. France adopted a law in May 2026 aimed at facilitating the restitution of cultural goods that have been illegally appropriated. This new framework allows for the processing of requests from foreign states without the need to adopt a specific law for each item or country. It also provides for the development of cultural, scientific, and museographic cooperation between France and beneficiary states.

However, the Guinean case will require research to establish the provenance of the items, the conditions of their acquisition, and their precise identification within French collections. The question of their preservation after a possible restitution is also a concern for Conakry. Guinea plans to construct a book museum in its capital as part of its membership in the UNESCO Creative Cities network. The infrastructure intended to host and preserve part of this heritage is not expected to be completed until 2030.

The Guinean approach is reminiscent of that undertaken by Benin since 2016. Cotonou obtained the restitution of 26 royal treasures from Abomey from France in November 2021, following the adoption of a specific French law in December 2020. In May 2025, Benin also recovered the kataklè, a royal stool attributed to King Béhanzin, from Finland, which was taken during the conquest of the Kingdom of Dahomey in 1892.