Chirac Leaves Controversial Legacy With Monument to African and Asian Culture

The French president Jacques Chirac is about to unveil what he hopes will be his greatest legacy to the nation - a €260m (£180m) riverside monument to himself as the "great defender" of African and Asian indigenous culture.

In the shadow of the Eiffel Tower on Paris's left bank, workmen are putting the finishing touches to Mr Chirac's decade-long pet project, the Musée du Quai Branly - Paris's first major new museum since the Pompidou Centre opened in 1977.

But when the museum's directors opened the site for previews this week before its June launch, historians were already questioning what they feared could be a patronising attempt to display African works in a "mock jungle" setting that rehashed "all France's old colonial cliches".

Within weeks of his election in 1995, Mr Chirac began brainstorming ideas for his legacy. He was keen not to be outdone by François Mitterand, who had left behind several costly "great projects" including the pyramid at the Louvre, the Institut du Monde Arabe and a national library bearing his own name.

Mr Chirac decided to stamp his mark on Paris with his country's staggering collection of more than 300,000 artefacts brought to France by its colonial adventurers and research missions. Those that have been exhibited were often shown in cringe-worthy and racist displays of colonial pride in the early 20th century. Paris's Musée des Arts Africains et Océaniens, which was recently closed to move its collection to Quai Branly, had undated African pieces because they predated European acknowledgement that Africa had a history before colonisation.

In 2000, the president had 120 non-western pieces displayed in special rooms at the Louvre as a taster of his new museum. He promised a Native American delegation to the Elysée Palace in 2004: "In these times of violence, arrogance, intolerance and fanaticism" his new museum would show "France's faith in the virtues of cultural diversity and dialogue".

The Musée du Quai Branly, which will host four permanent exhibition spaces dedicated to Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas, was unveiled this week by Jean Nouvel, Paris's biggest name in architecture who also designed Mitterand's acclaimed Institut du Monde Arabe. He said the landscaped gardens and tall trees surrounding his building would give a sense of a "museum hidden within a forest" where the artefacts could be "discovered". Already, a huge "vegetal wall" has been built - one side of the museum's offices is covered in a wall of plants - that gives the impression of a jungle.

The museum's director, Stéphane Martin, said it had been named after its geographical location on the banks of the Seine. He said that Quai Branly was a much-needed "political instrument" to explore the presence "of the non-European world in our life of Europeans". This, he said, was important for a country that had seen social "troubles". There would be a university on the site to study issues around colonialism, and funereal pieces would be treated with "utmost respect" in the displays, his team promised.

But Gilles Manceron, a historian who writes on French colonialism and vice-president of the French League for Human Rights, told the Guardian he feared Mr Chirac's project could backfire and prove a showcase for colonial cliches.

"Many historians feel France has not come to terms with the real history of its colonial era. This idea of a jungle or a forest surrounding the museum, a place where you will discover the 'dark continent' is a problem. It's as if these other continents are still savage, exuberant, dangerous and primitive. These are all the old cliches that still abound in France.

"Why not integrate all these pieces into the history of world art, show them all in the Louvre in the same space as European art? This whole project goes back to a colonial vision of the world: Europe is civilised, the other continents are not."

He said he would prefer to see a museum that told the whole story of French colonialism. "In surveys conducted in December and January, most of the population thought French colonialism was a positive thing. That is down to the official discourse which never tells them otherwise," he added.