Volkswacht Bodensee - Iconic Bayeux Tapestry to be loaned to Britain: French president

The loan of the embroidery depicting the 1066 Norman conquest of England will be made in exchange for archeological treasures mainly from the UK's Anglo-Saxon Sutton Hoo site, Macron told two French regional newspapers.

They will be loaned to museums in Caen and Rouen in northern France under the arrangement, they reported.

"By its symbolic, unprecedented nature, and the priceless value of the loaned pieces, this unprecedented exchange signifies the desire to revitalise the cultural relationship between our two countries and the trust that exists between us today," Macron told Ouest France newspaper.

"Our British friends reciprocate by offering us the opportunity to showcase on our side absolutely magnificent pieces, drawn from the Sutton Hoo treasure, pieces from the Lewis chess set, or the Battersea Shield."

Both items mentioned are medieval relics held by the British Museum.

The London museum holds 82 out of 93 ancient chess pieces found buried on the Isle of Lewis, Scotland, while the Battersea shield is a metal cover believed to have once been attached to the front of a centuries-old wooden shield.

The 68-metre-long (224-foot-long) Bayeux Tapestry, which dates from around 1077, depicts the famed Battle of Hastings when William the Conqueror crossed from France to defeat English forces in southern England.

Its loan will be the first time in more than 900 years than it has been in Britain.

The story of the 1066 military defeat, in which England's King Harold famously died after taking a French arrow in the eye, is still taught to British school children and is a founding moment in the long and bloody history of Anglo-French rivalry.

Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer are expected to formally announce the exchange during the French president's three-day visit, which ends Thursday.

The tapestry has been housed at a museum in the northern French town of Bayeux, and was recently restored for the first time since 1870, after Paris and London announced in 2018 that it would be loaned to Britain.

But the plan for the tapestry to cross the Channel for a mooted 2022 exhibition did not materialise, and there had been no recent update on when it would happen.

R.Buehler--VB