Then she called her boss, Master Alain Leroy, to inform him of the situation. In between, the protesters started to stick posters on the windows of the office. Then Master Leroy himself arrived, tore the posters, shouting that it was damaging his building (they were just stuck with tape and he could tear them without any effort).

Klee tried to explain to him that he just wanted to deliver a letter and discuss the matter peacefully. But Mr. Leroy started with denying the genocide of Native Americans, claimed that the artifacts had been sold by the Natives themselves, although he did not have a document proving it, but claimed that ‘everybody knew that Native Americans never had papers’! He claimed that nobody had any right to challenge his rights to sell sacred objects, as ‘all the courts have ruled for the 4th time that the sale was legal’. As a matter of fact, ‘all the courts’ are the court of the neighborhood, with that one Madame Judge who has no knowledge what so ever of Native Americans and just believes that Constitutions protect private property and the right to trade.

Mr. Leroy also referred abundantly to the right of private property, guaranteed by French and American Law. He also claimed that those artifacts were preserved thanks to white collectors (suggesting that Natives are not able to preserve their inheritance) and that they would not exist anymore if they had not been sold to while people.

Then, at a point, he claimed that the masks were not sacred but had been made specially for tourists, which amounts to admit that he is cheating on his customers, as they certainly don’t go to an auction to buy tourist junk.

via Indigenous Resistance: Paris Exclusive! Klee Benally challenges auction of sacred items in Paris.