Can women still bask on the beach, topless, without the police coming to call them to order? Thursday, the gendarmes asked several women to put back their swimsuit tops on the beach of Sainte-Marie-la-Mer, located a few kilometers from Perpignan, in the Pyrénées-Orientales. According to France 3 Occitanie, they were alerted by a family whose children were shocked to see a bare chest on the beach. Since then, Internet users are indignant.
While the controversy swells on social networks, the gendarmerie recognized this Tuesday on Twitter "the clumsiness of two security gendarmes who thought they were doing well". And the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin to comment on the incident: “It is unfounded that two women were accused of their outfit on the beach. Freedom is a precious commodity. And it is normal for the administration to recognize its mistakes. Because no one could indeed force women to cover themselves.
Two women were accused of wearing them on the beach without merit.
Freedom is a precious commodity. And it is normal for the administration to recognize its mistakes. #SainteMarielaMer https://t.co/eIWeOEBhBp
"If in the past, the topless on a beach could constitute an offense of sexual exhibition, today, nothing prohibits it, answers Valérie Duez-Ruff, lawyer at the bar of Paris. One could hope that, given the evolution of customs and its widespread use for several decades, this type of question would no longer arise. "In fact, says Caroline De Haas, of the feminist collective We All, the law only requires" not to show your sex in public ", except in naturist spaces of course.
"Part of the population stuck in the last century"
Me Valérie Duez-Ruff specifies, however, that locally, the mayors can go further in the restrictions: "Some beaches are regulated by municipal decree, for example at Paris-Plages, whose regulations prohibit the wearing of thongs and monokini , considered indecent outfits. Offenders face a fine of 38 euros. "
But in Sainte-Marie, this was not the case. "Insofar as no municipal decree prohibited the use of topless on the beach of Sainte-Marie-la-Mer, these two women were entitled to refuse to wear their swimsuit tops", concludes the member lawyer of the National Bar Council.
For Caroline De Haas, “we have the impression that part of the population has been stuck in the last century! "And to stress that this story" is not to be taken as an isolated case, but as an illustration among many others of the control of women's bodies by society. "The feminist activist prefers to see the positive side of this summer controversy:" Ten years ago, I do not know if we would have been indignant in the same way as today about the intervention of the gendarmes. This at least proves that mentalities are changing. "
