Will women ever have the right to wear pants in Paris?

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Par Le Figaro pour le cercle :

A woman senator is calling for the repeal of an eighteenth century ordinance still on the books, forbidding women to wear pants in Paris.

Ladies, if you are in Paris and wear pants, you are outlaws. Not for long? That is, if the socialist senator from Finistère, Maryvonne Blondin, gets her way. On July 14 she filed a bill in the Senate calling for the revocation of the police order forbidding women to wear pants in Paris. Since 26 Brumaire of the year IX (Nov. 17, 1799), women must theoretically request authorization from the police and provide medical justification to be able to cover their legs.

"I discovered this order this year, I was amazed," said Maryvonne Blondin. "So I introduced a text in June, and I’m waiting to know when it will be reviewed. This will depend on the burden of legislative work we’ll have."

The ban concerns Paris because that’s where the French Revolution's sans-culottes movement was born (1792). These revolutionaries claimed to wear pants as opposed to the bourgeoisie who wore "culottes," knee-breeches. In the process, women also demanded to wear pants, which they were strictly forbidden to do.

An unconstitutional text

The text of 26 Brumaire, year IX, while no longer enforced, is still in effect today despite the inclusion in the 1946 Constitution of the principle of equal rights between men and women. Article 3 of the preamble of the Constitution of 1946 indeed states that "the law guarantees women equal rights with men in all areas."



Maryvonne Blondin is not the first to try to rescind the order. In 1887, the feminist Marie-Rose Astié of Valsayre made the request to parliament. Demand dismissed. In 2004, the UMP (majority party) deputy Jean-Yves Hugon asked Minister for Gender Nicole Ameline for its removal. She replied that the "scope would be purely symbolic."

Police headquarters in Paris reacted the same way in Sept. 2010. The Council of Paris had even requested the deletion of the text. Since the ban on pants is a police ordinance, the prefecture can remove it, but it replied that the revocation of the offending order, assimilated to “legal archeology,” was not a priority. Since then, there’s been total silence.

In the National Assembly and the Senate, elected officials have the right to sit in pants only since 1980. In 1972, Michele Alliot-Marie, technical counselor to Minister Edgar Faure at the time, made the talk of the town thanks to her nimbleness. As she was about to enter the hemicycle in pants, she was stopped short by a bailiff. Undaunted, the future minister replied: "If my pants are bothering you, I’ll take them off as soon as possible."

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» Read the original article in French by Judith Duportail

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