Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador tweeted on Sunday that he has tested positive for COVID-19. This file photo shows him giving his daily morning news conference at the presidential palace, Palacio Nacional, in Mexico City on December 18, 2020. Photo: IC

Mexico's president on Monday slammed as "immoral" the auctioning in France of items that form part of other countries' cultural heritage, after another sale of pre-Columbian artifacts from the Latin American country.

"The auctions that take place in France are immoral, it is very regrettable that the French government has not legislated on this," Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said in Mexico City.

On January 28, auction house Millon sold about 30 pre-Hispanic Mexican artifacts despite calls from Mexico's culture ministry to refrain from doing so.

Lopez Obrador said his wife, historian Beatriz Gutierrez, had sent a letter to the French Foreign Ministry, urging it "to intervene in these auctions of pre-Hispanic art" taken "illegally" from Mexico.

He added the sale of cultural heritage items should be discontinued worldwide, and urged would-be buyers: "Don't become accomplices of criminals, don't act like criminals."

Lopez Obrador also criticized Austria for holding on to a centuries-old Aztec feather crown believd to have belonged to Emperor Moctezuma (1502-20) despite repeated calls for its repatriation.

In recent years, Mexico has been trying to recover artifacts in the hands of private collectors around the world, with only partial success.

To date, it has managed to recover some 6,000 artifacts taken from the country, according to Lopez Obrador.

As well as calling for artworks to be returned, Mexico has accused major European fashion houses of cultural appropriation for lifting native designs for their clothes.

AFP