The mayor of a town in France has thrown a patriotic female statue out of his town hall because its breasts were too big, his aides said on Friday.

The terracotta bust of Marianne -- the traditional female embodiment of the French Republic in a Phrygian cap -- was an original work by a local artist, installed in 2007 at the town hall in Neuville-en-Ferrain, population 10,000.

"It was making people gossip," said one town hall employee who asked not to be named. "Remarks were made, during weddings for example."

Mayor Gerard Cordon persuaded councillors to approve 900 euros (1,280 US dollars) in this year's budget to buy a replacement, a more conventional bust of Marianne modelled on the statuesque French model Laetitia Casta.

The artist who made the rejected bust, Catherine Lamacque, said she gave it outsized breasts deliberately, "to symbolise the generosity of the Republic."