What the topless sunbathing row says about the risqué French
As you will have noticed, France is presently in turmoil caused by a serious threat to women’s fundamental human right to sunbathe topless. This follows a worrying incident on a Mediterranean beach near Perpignan. Acting on a complaint from a nearby family, two police officers – one man, one woman – apparently ordered three monokini’ed women to cover up.
Oh dear. Cue hullabaloo. Pandemic panic and economic melt-down be damned. Here, at last, was a crucial issue. It went ballistic, obviously. Almost everyone of any political persuasion – feminist, left, centre, extreme right – rose in outrage. No other issue has so unified the nation since the Great War. Home secretary Gérald Darmamin romped to the aid of freedom. “Liberty is a precious asset,” he said.
Others perceived a threat to French culture and the nation’s identity. Thus, as much of Britain got in a lather about the muting of the Last Night of The Proms and its incidence on the sense of British nationhood, so France was taking to the barricades for bare breasts. This seemed about right. In a sense, Delacroix got in early with his 1830 masterpiece, Liberty Leading The People.
And, anyway, historically-speaking, sexual matters aren’t considered particularly extraordinary in France. They are simply a usually agreeable element of everyday life. The enthusiasm for same is unconstricted by 24/7 moralising, perhaps because the French lack a tabloid press to raise the alarm. The contradictory cocktail of leering and condemnation lacks appeal on the Gallic side of the Channel. The French aren’t necessarily randier, simply less traumatised by randiness. The hue and cry over Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction, or Madonna’s appearance in her bathtub, were unlikely to be echoed in a country where mainstream entertainments – Crazy Horse, Moulin Rouge – welcome families with stage-fulls of bare flesh.
Of course, things get out of hand. The vast naturist village at the Cap d’Agde – not too far from Perpignan either – has been hit by a flurry of Covid cases, partly because social distancing is very much not the point of a holiday there for many visitors. Or, as one told local reporters: “We don’t come here to play cards.”
But the fact that this village, the “Euro-capital of libertinage”, exists on French soil underlines an important element in the country’s history. In the 19th century, and through to the middle of the 20th, Paris hosted dozens of brothels – including Le Chabanais, where the Prince of Wales (the future Edward VII, not our estimable heir) frolicked chest-deep in champagne. Cary Grant and Duke Ellington were among later customers. The brothels were closed in 1946 not so much in an élan of sexual morality as because many of the women had been too accommodating to Nazi officers. Meanwhile, Josephine Baker had launched the most successful career of any inter-war female entertainer with some pretty exotic topless dancing. A micro-skirt made of silver lamé bananas enhanced her appeal.
It was Frenchwoman Anne Desclos, writing as “Pauline Réage”, who gave the world The Story Of O in 1954. The work makes Lady Chatterley’s Lover – about which Britain got so steamed up six years later – read like Paddington Goes Game Keeping. At the same time, and as ever, French leaders were exercising their historical rights to mistresses. All French kings had their favorites, Napoleon had several lovers (including one taken over by the Duke of Wellington when he’d won), Pétain was a skirt-chaser into his 80s and President Chirac was known as “Mr Five Minutes, Shower included”.
This surprises no French person, essentially because they’re all at it. As has been mentioned before, a recent survey suggested that Parisians had, on average slept with 19 people each, around double the London figure. Licence, indeed adultery, slot seamlessly into many French lives – not all (I have a French wife) but many. The fact that a good-looking woman ministers to passing motorists at the end of a country lane near our village in southern France shocks no-one. The equivalent would be a bordello in the Cotswolds.
No wonder, then, that the citizens kick off when the police start issuing clothing instructions in flagrant breach of the entirety of French history. That said, things have apparently moved on a little recently. Though I haven’t noticed it – because, obviously, I don’t look – it is said that fewer young women are these days going topless. They’re fed up of body-shaming and associated matters. Maybe even of ogling.
And I have to say that, in defiance of the full weight of France’s past, I’m not entirely dismayed. As I’ve said before, far be it from me to give any sort of feminine dress advice. (My own fashion sense was formed by Man At C&A, circa 1979). However, putting aside the politics and concentrating only on the personal, this is a topic which concerns us all. Going topless makes your own menfolk mildly uneasy, however sophisticated they claim to be. It causes havoc in neighbouring families whose males must pretend to be looking at kites or parascenders or any damned thing just a few inches to your left. And it may leave you feeling embarrassed when a small child shows up, stares and says: “My mummy’s are bigger than yours.” All this for a tan which, once you’re home, will presumably be appreciated by a fairly tight circle of admirers.
Politically, then, I’m absolutely with those who consider bikini tops as an affront to France’s historic sense of itself. Aux armes, citoyens! Personally, well, if you’re near me and mine on the beach, I’d find it easier if you went full bikini. But your choice, obviously (he added, ducking).
