Despite protests that the return should not even be considered [1], negotiations are now ongoing between France & Korea to sort out the details of the return of manuscripts from the BNF [2].
From:
Digital Chosun ilbo [3]
France, Korea Begin Negotiations on Return of Looted Books
Arirang News / Dec. 08, 2010 11:23 KSTTalks over the return of Korean royal texts looted by the French Navy in 1866 have begun, a month after President Lee Myung-bak and his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy struck an agreement on the transfer.
The Korean Embassy in France announced on Tuesday that follow-up discussions began last weekend, amidst an expected backlash from French political conservatives and curators at the National Library of France.
However the two presidents have agreed not to let anything stand in the way of moving forward with the transfer, and an outline of a deal is expected by the middle of next week.The archive is composed of 297 volumes of royal texts from the Chosun Dynasty.