PARIS—France opened a new museum celebrating tribal arts and culture, but at a time of heightened tensions over the country's colonial legacy, critics fear it could deepen divisions further.
Built next to the Eiffel Tower, the Musee du Quai Branly gathers together 300,000 works of art and objects collected over the centuries from Africa, the Americas, Oceania and Asia, ranging from Congolese harps to Amazonian feathered masks.
Featuring a vertical flower bed on one of its walls, a cinema, a library and a garden bigger than two soccer fields, the museum represents a personal triumph for President Jacques Chirac, who promoted the project after taking power in 1995. "It's a sign and a symbol of a France that knows and recognizes the world's cultures," Chirac told France 3 television this week. He says the museum, costing $290 million, will be a counterweight to the array of European collections dedicated to Western art and has dismissed suggestions that Paris already has too many galleries.
But the inauguration of the Musee du Quai Branly comes at a particularly tense time for France, divided over a tough new immigration bill and stunned by suburban riots last year. Some critics say the decision to show indigenous art in isolation could create or reinforce a "them and us" mentality.
"If you isolate, you risk to repeat the old devaluation (of certain civilizations)," historian Gilles Manceron said. "For France, there seems to be a particular difficulty to become aware of the stereotypes constructed at colonial times and to get rid of them."
But museum chief Stephane Martin said accusations the new complex glorified France's colonial past were unfounded, arguing the museum sought to provide a fresh insight. "I think it will be very clear that it is not our idea to show a France that has conquered the world. And neither do we want to put the world into a box. It's not an 'Around the world in 80 showcases'," Martin told Reuters in an interview. "It's the place where you can question a French collection ... and help people understand the world they live in a bit better," he said, standing on the roof of the futuristic four-building site designed by French architect Jean Nouvel.
Bringing together exhibits from different museums put the objects into their appropriate spotlight, he said. "To have them now ... at the foot of the Eiffel Tower ... I think that's important for the dignity, the respect of all the people who have produced these works," he said. But historian Manceron, vice-president of France's League for Human Rights, said the debate about the museum's name reflected France's struggle to deal with its past.
After stirring criticism for floating the idea of a "primitive arts" or "first arts" museum, organizers finally plumped for the least controversial suggestion—to name the building after the street it was built on. "But even with the name changed, the problem remains," Manceron said. "The museum's objective is not clear." Chirac himself might have a solution to the name problem.
Asked whether one of his successors should rename the new complex the "Jacques Chirac Museum", the president said: "I don't know whether that would be a good idea. It would be a great honor to me, in any case."
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