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And how better to raise awareness, they thought, than to have young women bare their breasts in public?

“If we were just three of us there with our shirts on, it wouldn’t do anything,” said 18-year-old protester Julie-Anne Beaulac.

Beaulac is a proud FEMEN supporter who believes women can make political statements and fight for social equality by displaying their breasts in public. She’s a member of the new and growing FEMEN Quebec group, which formed last fall. The group is part of the international feminist movement, characterized for topless protests in Europe, that kicked off in Ukraine five years ago.

Xenia Chernyshova, the woman who founded Quebec’s FEMEN chapter, said topless protests are controversial but effective.

“It’s a form of protest to actually have attention,” Chernyshova explained. “We’re using the same strategies as show business and by doing that we can reach more people.”

Chernyshova said she knows some people gawk simply because she’s half-naked, but said they at least see the slogans she waves on posters and paints on her body. Even if people think she’s crazy, at least she gets her messages out, she said.

Chernyshova brought FEMEN to Canada last October when she paraded topless through a Montreal IKEA to protest the fact that women were being airbrushed out of the company’s Saudi catalogues. A YouTube video of the event shows the curvy blonde woman sauntering between display furniture while brandishing a poster that reads “Women are still here.” A pair of frazzled security guards eventually escorts her from the building.