PARIS, FRANCE.- French President Jacques Chirac together with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan inaugurated yesterday the Quai Branly Museum, paying homage to indigenous tribes that have been brutalized throughout history.

Jacques Chirac stated, The museum pays "due homage to peoples who have too often suffered violence at the hands of history throughout the ages, people who have been brutalized, exterminated by greedy and brutal conquerors, people who have been humiliated and scorned."

Non-Western arts acquired a crucial place in museum collections in the course of the 20th century. This was achieved thanks to Fauvist and Cubist artists, under the influence of writers and critics, from Apollinaire to Malraux, and also to research work carried out by leading anthropologists, such as Claude Levi-Strauss. A great ambition – to officially recognize the rightful place of these civilizations, together with the heritage of peoples who are sometimes forgotten, in the present culture of the world – was fulfilled by adopting two ideas. The first was to open in Paris in 2005 a museum dedicated to the arts of Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas, offering a broad view ranging from ethnology to art history. The second, and parallel, idea was to open galleries in the Louvre in 2000 to exhibit sculptures from these regions of the world. Launched under the patronage of UNESCO, the project for the Musée du Quai Branly was enthusiastically received by thousands of visitors who have already seen its annex, the Pavillon des Sessions, at the Louvre.

Project challenges and ambitions - The creation of a new museum on one of the last remaining available sites in the heart of Paris, on the banks of the Seine, is an opportunity to develop an original project with an architectural concept that meets all the demands of image, identity, harmony with the urban environment and functional requirements.

As most of the great international institutions are having to come to terms with the need to move beyond the heritage of the West's earliest contacts with other cultures and abandon the post-colonial vision, this new museum will offer a ground-breaking new conception in terms of scientific equipment, organisation and the collections on show to the public.

The aim of the project is to respond to the diversity of audiences, to create a synergy of activities, to originate a new practice of international relations, to make outstanding collections accessible, to offer a resource, research and training centre, to provide a forum for the expression of living cultures, to incorporate mobility, to organise the appropriate technical and administrative infrastructure.

International Cooperation - Many governments, collections and institutions have shown their support for the Musée du Quai Branly by lending some of their masterpieces to be exhibited temporarily in the Louvre galleries.

A policy of mutual aid and scientific cooperation is being developed with the countries of origin of these works. The Musée du Quai Branly will be open to researchers from all over the world and will also carry out field operations to safeguard and preserve cultural heritage.