Bare breasts represent liberty, says French PM
He’s labelled a cretin over claim following burkini ban row
FRANCE’S prime minister was accused of being a sexist ‘cretin’ yesterday after saying that bare breasts were a glorious representation of his troubled country.
In a clumsy speech about national identity, Manuel Valls contrasted those who show off an ample naked bosom with Muslims wearing headscarves.
He claimed that Marianne, the mythical Goddess of Liberty who represents the French Republic, had the right idea.
Mr Valls said: ‘Marianne has a naked breast because she is feeding the people! She is not veiled, because she is free! That is the Republic!’ he said at a government rally in Colomiers, near Toulouse.
He is a fierce opponent of women who cover up in overtly Islamic clothing, such as the controversial burkini swimsuit.
He said he would much rather see French women, and visitors to the country including holidaymakers on the country’s beaches, showing off their breasts than hiding them.
But critics said his attempts to portray Marianne, a fictional character whose image is displayed in bronzes and paintings in town halls and law courts across the land, were both ridiculous and sexist.
Highly respected historian Mathilde Larrere tweeted: ‘Marianne has a naked breast because she’s an allegory, you cretin!” An allegory is a literary or rhetorical device used to convey hidden meanings. There were also claims Mr Valls was confusing Marianne with an 1830 painting of Liberty Leading the People by Eugene Delacroix. It depicts a woman displaying her breasts, but not necessarily Marianne, who often appears with her breasts covered.
Marianne also chooses to cover her head with a Phrygian cap – the kind which might be considered comparable to the headwear Muslim women choose to use.
Female politicians, including former minister Cecile Duflot, said Mr Valls’s confused claims were sexist and ignorant.
It came as the burkini ban – a measure Mr Valls partially supported – was finally lifted in towns and cities including Nice.
Male police with guns and pepper spray canisters had been inspecting women over their beachwear.
But on Friday the Council of State – France’s highest appeal court – quashed the ban. Three senior judges ruled that it was a ‘serious and clearly illegal violation of fundamental freedoms’.
At first, right-wing councils such as the one in Nice continued with the ban, saying it was in response to recent terrorist attacks by Islamic State. Although 30 Muslims were among 86 people killed by an Isis-linked lorry driver in Nice on July 14, they argued that the burkini might ‘provoke’ people.
But organisations such as the United Nations and Amnesty International said that such logic was ridiculous.
UN spokesman Rupert Colville said: ‘These decrees don’t improve the security situation but rather fuel religious intolerance and the stigmatisation of Muslims in France, especially women.’ Mr Colville also attacked ‘the manner in which the anti-burkini decrees have been implemented’, saying it was ‘humiliating.’
But the Nice Administrative Council finally lifted the ban, citing a law reading that mayors cannot ‘without exceeding police powers, enact measures that prohibit access to the beach and swimming, as they are not based on proven risks of disturbances to public order, nor reasons of hygiene or decency.’
Welcoming the lifting of the restriction, a spokesman for France’s Human Rights League said: ‘It’s a symbolic victory.’