France to send Parthenon metope to Greece for 2021 celebrations

France has agreed to lend Greece a metope from the Parthenon displayed at the Louvre, to coincide with the 2021 celebrations of the bicentennial of the start of the country's War of Independence, state-run news agency ANA-MPA reported Friday.

French President Emmanuel Macron is said to have accepted Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis' proposal to exhibit the metope at the Acropolis Museum, a venue which houses all the antiquities found on the Acropolis Hill, the report said.

In exchange, Greece will send France numerous bronze antiquities which will be exhibited in the Louvre for the first time.

There were originally 92 metopes (sets of square, carved panels depicting mythical battles) on the Parthenon: 14 on the east and west sides and 32 on the others. Though most of them were destroyed, one remains in the Acropolis Museum, one in the Louvre and 14 are in the British Museum, forming part of Lord Elgin's haul.