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FILE - The Koh-i-Noor diamond, set in the Maltese Cross at the front of the crown made for Britain's late Queen Mother, is seen on her coffin as it is drawn to London's Westminster Hall on April 5, 2002. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, File)

PARIS – As French police race to track where the Louvre's stolen crown jewels have gone, a growing chorus wants a brighter light on where they came from.

The artifacts were French, but the gems were not. Their exotic routes to Paris run through the shadows of empire — an uncomfortable history that France, like other Western nations with treasure-filled museums, has only begun to confront.

The attention sparked by the heist is an opportunity, experts say, to pressure the Louvre and Europe’s great museums to explain their collections' or

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