France returns ancient artefacts to Ethiopia

France began the return of some 3,500 archaeological artifacts to Ethiopia, which Paris held since the 1980s for study.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot handed over two prehistoric stone axes, called bifaces, and a stone cutter to Ethiopia's Tourism Minister, during a visit to the national museum in Addis Ababa.

The tools are "samples of nearly 3,500 artifacts from the excavations that were carried out on the Melka Kunture site", a cluster of prehistoric sites south of the capital that were excavated under the direction of a late French researcher, Barrot said. France and Ethiopia hold a longstanding bilateral agreement on cooperating in the fields of archaeology and paleontology.