<img src="https://img.lemde.fr/2023/03/08/0/0/3048/2135/664/0/75/0/c324805_c33ebb037fdd46dab9276d5e18eaff7e-0-4f236fac889e422d8b4b950863933b80.jpg" srcset=" https://img.lemde.fr/2023/03/08/0/0/3048/2135/556/0/75/0/c324805_c33ebb037fdd46dab9276d5e18eaff7e-0-4f236fac889e422d8b4b950863933b80.jpg 556w, https://img.lemde.fr/2023/03/08/0/0/3048/2135/600/0/75/0/c324805_c33ebb037fdd46dab9276d5e18eaff7e-0-4f236fac889e422d8b4b950863933b80.jpg 600w, https://img.lemde.fr/2023/03/08/0/0/3048/2135/664/0/75/0/c324805_c33ebb037fdd46dab9276d5e18eaff7e-0-4f236fac889e422d8b4b950863933b80.jpg 664w, https://img.lemde.fr/2023/03/08/0/0/3048/2135/700/0/75/0/c324805_c33ebb037fdd46dab9276d5e18eaff7e-0-4f236fac889e422d8b4b950863933b80.jpg 700w, https://img.lemde.fr/2023/03/08/0/0/3048/2135/800/0/75/0/c324805_c33ebb037fdd46dab9276d5e18eaff7e-0-4f236fac889e422d8b4b950863933b80.jpg 800w" sizes="(min-width: 1024px) 556px, 100vw" alt="Women demonstrate with a poster reading " down="" with="" the="" patriarchy"="" as="" part="" of="" international="" women's="" day="" in="" bayonne,="" france,="" on="" march="" 8,="" 2023."="" width="100%" height="auto">
Residents and summer visitors to a picturesque town in southern France have rallied to support a woman who faces prosecution after walking through its streets topless in a furor over the right to bare skin.
The woman, identified as Marina, has been accused of sexual exhibitionism by police. But she said she was walking topless in Aurillac, central France, because it was hot at the height of a summer heatwave, and men have the right to do the same.
A thousand people, including many women with bare breasts, marched through the town on Saturday, August 26, to express solidarity with the woman, brandishing slogans including "Aurillac topless."
Men and women alike went bare-chested, scrawling "What difference?" in marker pens on their skin.
The incident occurred on Wednesday last week when the town was packed with visitors during Aurillac's annual street theater festival that brings in thousands of people each summer.
Marina explained her choice to the local media on Thursday, saying she had been "super hot" and wanted to do as "half the men" did that day, "who (had) no T-shirts on."
Police officers arrested her after refusing to cover her top at their request.
The demonstration on Saturday had begun peacefully but then degenerated as some protesters burned French flags in front of the town court, with some breaking inside and starting a fire, authorities said.
Calm returned after the Socialist mayor of the city, Pierre Mathonier, addressed the crowds.
Mathonier said he backed the woman's cause but expressed dismay over the damage done by some of the protesters.
"Equality between men and women is a principle that should allow equal treatment for men's breasts as well as for women's breasts," Mathonier told BFM television on Monday.
He added that "the ransacking of the court is inadmissible; it tarnishes the image of the Republic and the festival."
Topless sunbathing in France on beaches is legally not considered sexual exhibitionism, though it has become less popular recently. A controversy erupted in the summer of 2020 when a group of women were targeted by a complaint for baring their breasts on a beach.