FRANCE has struck a deal with Nigeria to borrow for 25 years three works of art which were put on display in a Paris museum after being illegally exported, Culture Minister Catherine Tasca said Wednesday. The three statues from the Nok and Sokoto traditions were found by mining prospectors in the early 1990s, exported without permission and ended up in the primitive arts wing of the Louvre museum. Curators had planned to add them to the permanent collection of Paris’ future Museum of Primitive Art but Nigeria protested in April and officially demanded the statues’ return. Tasca said in a statement the two governments had reached a compromise deal under which the figures would stay in Paris on loan for another quarter of a century before being sent home. – AFP