Works by Jacques Prévert, Aimé Césaire, or even François Mitterrand, including rare copies all signed... A library of 343 volumes that belonged to Léopold Sédar Senghor, poet, writer and first president of Senegal, were to be auctioned Tuesday, April 16 in the city of Caen. However, the sale was eventually suspended at the request of the Senegalese state, which has agreed to buy the books.

"On instructions" from the new Senegalese president Bassirou Diomaye Faye, discussions were initiated with the auctioneer and the heir to conclude an "agreement very quickly" to "repatriate the works to Senegal," explained the Senegalese ambassador in France, El Hadji Magatte Seye.

The country then plans to make these works available to its citizens in a soon-to-be-created Senghor museum to honor the "founding father of the nation of Senegal, a man of culture and of global stature, who is himself a symbol of the universal link between peoples," the same source emphasized.

A deputy in France (1945-1959) before becoming head of state in his own country (1960-1980), Léopold Sédar Senghor, who died in 2001, was one of the leading figures of Negritude, a movement for the defense of the cultural values of the black world which he founded in the 1930s, alongside the Martinican Aimé Césaire and the Guyanese Léon Gontran Damas.

To analyze the stakes of this sale and the journey of Léopold Sédar Senghor, France 24 spoke with writer and historian Amzat Boukari-Yabara, a specialist in West Africa and signatory of a petition in favor of Senegal acquiring this library.

France 24: You have taken a stance in favor of the return of these works that belonged to Senghor to Senegal, for what reasons?

Amzat Boukari-Yabara: It seems logical that the archives of former African presidents should return to Africa. Indeed, Léopold Sédar Senghor held prestigious positions in France, where he was a minister before independence and later a member of the French Academy, but it was in Senegal, as the first president, that he wrote the most significant part of his career.

Then these negotiations between the Senegalese state and Senghor's heirs are taking place in a particular context, as work has been started on the restitution of African heritage. In this framework, the French state could facilitate the recovery of these archives and their restitution.

Finally, to aid the work of researchers, it is important that the archives of these historical figures remain accessible and not be dispersed. Even though Senghor's influences and readings are already known and his library is unlikely to provide any particular new discoveries, the Senegalese state plans to integrate these works into a museum. In 2013, former president Macky Sall had also ensured the acquisition of a series of items belonging to the former president. It is therefore an approach that needs to be supported.

As an intellectual committed to the left and a defender of universalism, Léopold Sédar Senghor was the subject of much criticism for his authoritarian management of Senegal (1960-1980). How can this duality be explained?

It comes from the fact that he held a presidency far removed from the poet he was. He managed the country alone for a long time, at the head of a single party by repressing any opposition, before stepping down and leaving room for his successor, Prime Minister Abdou Diouf. He is also criticized for his close ties with France and for not having been able to establish a reciprocal cooperation.

To his credit, he maintained a certain stability and brought international prestige to Senegal through his career as a poet but also through his cultural projects. He was an intellectual president, a learned man who promoted the arts, notably through the "World Festival of Black Arts," launched in 1966. He made Dakar an essential scene for culture. His rise to power was also a strong symbol of openness, being a Christian himself in a predominantly Muslim country.

Nearly 25 years after his death, all these facets remain: a character made of contradictions, culturally very open but authoritarian and closed in the exercise of power.

With France 24