Verbalization of a woman walking topless in Aurillac, damage to the court on the sidelines of a demonstration of support and debate around gender equality and the freedom to be topless in the street. 20 minutes takes stock of the recent events that disrupted the 36th edition of the Street Theater Festival, which took place from August 23 to 26 in this town of Cantal, in the Massif Central.
What happened in Aurillac?
Last Wednesday, during the first day of the 36th edition of the Street Theater Festival which took place until Saturday, a festival-goer, Marina, was checked by the police while she was walking topless in the streets of Aurillac . Initially refusing to cover her chest, she was taken to the police station and questioned. Following this control, she let it be known that she was going to be fined, covered by a criminal order for “sexual exhibition”.
A thousand people in support
In response, a demonstration of support was organized Saturday noon, on the square of the town hall of Aurillac, where more than a thousand people gathered. The demonstrators and demonstrators marched mostly bare-chested, according to the media present on site. Slogans such as “Aurillac topless, the police in PLS” or “free our nipples from your dirty looks!” accompanied this march which ended in the early afternoon with applause in front of the courthouse.
Some members of the procession, masked, took advantage of this clapping to enter the court and degraded, among other things, the waiting room. According to a press release from the prefecture, the group, made up of “a dozen individuals”, also “triggered the start of a quickly contained fire”. Other people took down French flags from the building and burned a few.
Calm returned after the speech of Frédéric Remy, artistic director of Éclat, the association organizing the street theater festival, and that of the mayor of the city, Pierre Mathonier.
Faced with degradation, many reactions
Many public figures have condemned the degradations committed in the court of Aurillac, starting with the Minister of Justice, Éric Dupond-Moretti who went there on Monday to provide support to the personnel concerned.
Laurent Wauquiez, president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, wrote to the mayor of Aurillac and the artistic director of Éclat, to “know [leur] analysis and [leur] feeling about the springs of this inexcusable outburst of hatred. » As relayed The mountainhe assured that his services were at their disposal “to [les] support in setting up any initiative that [leur] would seem appropriate to never again be confronted with this type of heinous abuse”.
Pierre Mathonier, the PS mayor of the city, also condemned these actions which “degrade both the image of the Republic and that of the festival” on BFM-TV. He specified that “the police had done their job” before adding that a “societal debate had to be created” by referring to “equality between men and women”. “It’s also one of the principles that should allow for equal treatment of men’s breasts as well as women’s breasts,” he said.
A social debate behind this case
The day after her check-up, Marina had explained her gesture to the local press saying that he was “hyperhot” and wanted to do “like half the men” that day, “who didn’t[avaient] no t-shirts”. This affair then resurrects a social debate on the difference in penalties between men and women when they walk around bare-chested in the city.
What does the law say about this? As reminded France Info in the program “the true of the false”, the offense of “indecent exposure” no longer exists in the Penal Code since 1994. Some town halls, often in seaside resorts, have regulated this situation locally by issuing decrees to prohibit wandering around in a bathing suit outside beaches, at the risk of being fined. But there is a difference between men and women. Because if “indecent exposure” no longer exists, “the sexual exhibition imposed on the sight of others in a place accessible to the gaze of the public” is itself punishable by “one year’s imprisonment and fine of 15,000 euros”. Legally, the debate is whether bare breasts have a sexual character or not because the Penal Code does not specify it. It all depends on the context.
In recent years, many demonstrations have taken place around the world, such as in Canada or even in Brazil, to defend the right to walk around topless.