Day 1177 (Saturday) 29^th August 2020

Shock horror – it wasn’t sunny today – it was hot but it was cloudy and a big storm has been forecasted. There have been storms forecasted all summer but we haven’t had one yet, so hopefully it will happen today to clear the air.

I found these articles in The Local France (the photos are not mine)

Police tell topless women on French beach to cover up

After reports of police officers telling topless women on a French beach to cover up, we look at the law about what you can and cannot wear in public in France.

For a brief period on Tuesday, the hashtag #seinsnus - bare breasts - was trending on Twitter in France, with hundreds of people leaving their comments on this French summer tradition.

The chat was in response to an incident in the coastal resort of Sainte-Marie-la-Mer in south west France, near Perpignan, where two gendarmes had apparently approached several women who were sunbathing topless on the beach and asked them to cover up.

The mairie confirmed to local media that the incident had happened, saying the gendarmes acted on a request from a family who were also on the beach.

But would the women have been within their legal rights to refuse to cover up?

This is what French law says

Topless women

If you are on a beach, there is nothing in national law to prevent women going topless or wearing the 'monokini' - bikini bottoms only.

However some municipalities have brought in their own local decrees banning the monokini or thong. These should be sign-posted, and flouting the regulation can earn you a 38€ fine.

Among the places where going topless is banned are the Paris plages - the urban beaches that pop up in the capital every summer.

For a variety of reasons - from skin cancer to fears of being filmed on mobile phones - French women are increasingly less likely to go topless.

Away from the beach going topless in public is generally not allowed unless you are in a designated area - such as a nudist colony or Paris' short-lived nudist restaurant - or a designated event.

Topless men

Men are allowed to be topless on any beach because apparently their nipples are less shocking than female ones, but once you get away from the seaside there are some restrictions.

Again there is no national law covering this - the law that banned men from appearing topless in public was repealed in 1994 - but some local authorities have brought in restrictions for towns that order men to keep their tops on. 

For example those who decide to go shirtless in the town of Trouville-sur-Mer on the Normandy coastface fines of up to 17€ while at La Grande Motte, a popular seaside resort in the southern French region of Occitanie this penalty jumps to 60€.

Trouville-sur-Mer

La Grande Motte

Private businesses are also within their rights to refuse entry to bare-torsoed men.

Fully nude

If baring your top half only is not enough, there are plenty of places in France where nuturism is practised. However if you're going to do this you need to be sure that you are in a designated area as you cannot strip off on all beaches.

There are designated nudist resorts and even whole villages such as the famous Cap d'Agde on the Riviera, as well as plenty of beaches where being nude is accepted - these will usually be signposted.

Away from the beach it's a little more complicated. Although there is no specific law against being nude in public in France, there is a law against disturbing public order, which can be used for people who are naked in public and refuse to cover up when asked.

"The first rule for any naturist is to respect other people," Jacques Freeman of the Association for the Promotion of Naturism in Liberty (APNEL) previously told The Local. "And it's really important not to be confrontational about your choice to be nude, for example if your neighbours don't like you sunbathing naked in the garden."

Wearing too many clothes

As well as rules on what you can take off, there are rules about what you can put on, although again these mostly apply to women (that might be the patriarchy). The full-body swimsuit known as the burkini is banned at most municipal swimming pools.

Whether it's allowed on beaches has been the subject of several years of controversy and high-profile legal battles after some local authorities attempted to ban it on the beach, although in the end the local bans were overturned by the courts.

France's Interior Minister defends 'precious' right of women to go topless

France's interior minister on Tuesday defended the right of women to sunbathe topless on beaches, after a police warning for a group who stripped off on the southern coast sparked a social media outcry.

French gendarmes patrolling a beach in Mediterranean seaside town Sainte-Marie-la-Mer last week asked a group of topless sunbathers to cover up in response to a complaint from a family, the local gendarmerie said in a statement on Facebook.

It acknowledged their actions had been "clumsy" but said the officers aimed wanted only to calm the situation, insisting there had been no official order to ban topless sunbathing in the town.

The mairie of Sainte-Marie-la-Mer also issued a statement clarifying that there is nothing to prevent topless sunbathing on its beaches, adding that it was "very attached to the republican principles of liberty". 

But the case prompted an avalanche of criticsm on social media, with #seinsnus (topless) trending on Twitter in France.

"Is Sainte-Marie-la-Mer now Saudi Arabia?" wondered one user, while others slammed a creeping "prudishness" in France.

"It was wrong that the women were warned about their clothing," Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin wrote on Twitter.

"Freedom is something precious. And it is normal that officials can admit their mistakes." 

"You will always see me in uniform," the spokeswoman of the French gendarmerie Maddy Scheurer wrote on Twitter, adding a smiling emoji.

"But topless sunbathing is allowed on the beach at Sainte-Marie-la-Mer. It was clumsiness by two gendarmes who had the best intentions."

Topless sunbathing in France is legally not considered to be sexual exhibitionism although it can be halted by local directives outlawing certain styles of dress.

But far from everyone in France takes their tops off on the beach these days and topless sunbathing has become less popular in recent years.

Surveys show that younger women are increasingly concerned about sexual harassment and body shaming on the beach.

Less than 20 percent of French women aged under 50 now sunbathe topless, compared with 28 percent 10 years ago and 43 percent in 1984, according to a recent survey by pollster Ifop of over 5,000 Europeans including 1,000 French.

This makes the French less willing to bathe topless than some other Europeans, with almost half of Spanish women saying they bathe topless and 34 percent of Germans.