PARIS (AP) – France’s summer is fast becoming a memory, and so is one of its iconic beach sights: topless woman.
As few as 2 percent of French women under 35 now say they want to bare their breasts, according to an Elle magazine poll this summer. It’s a far cry from the once-ubiquitous scenes of semi-nudity on the French Riviera, epitomized by 1960s blond bombshell Brigitte Bardot.
“It’s seen as vulgar. People are more prudish these days,” explains 60-year old Muriel Trazie, keeping her breasts out of the public eye while sunning herself on Paris Plages, the French capital’s summer beach.
Sandra Riahi, 22, in a bikini, chimed in: “I’ve never done it. I’d be too embarrassed.”
In the 1960s, it took a country like France to make feminism sexy – and women did it by going topless on the beach. Men don’t have to wear bikini tops, so why should we? the feminists cried. The boundary-breaking became risque trend-setting – when photos of La Bardot posing topless in the Cote d’Azur were beamed around the world.