With its monumental Art Deco façade overlooking the Eiffel Tower, the Musée de l’Homme, or Museum of Mankind, is a Paris landmark. Every year, hundreds of thousands of visitors flock to this anthropology museum to experience its prehistoric skeletons and ancient statuettes.
<p>By identifying the sources of skulls in its collection, France's Museum of Mankind fears it might open itself to demands for restitution. </p>
The restitution of the remains, said to belong to 19th-century freedom fighters, was hailed as a symbol of reconciliation, but papers obtained by The Times reveal a gesture muddled by politics.
France has rejected a request from a visiting delegation of Canadian Inuits to extradite a priest accused of sexual assault on young members of the Indigenous minority in the 1960s. The justice ministry…