'We're fighting against prejudice' ... Dominique Moreau. Photograph: Alain Jocard/AFP

Dominique Moreau is a trailblazing freedom fighter, a man battling for equality and recognition in a world of prejudice and gender-based stereotypes. At least, that is what his supporters say. To others who may be less aware of the socio-political implications of his sartorial habits, however, Moreau's heroism is less apparent. To them, he is just a bloke in a skirt.

"Today, millions of men around the world wear skirts, like the sarong in Asia or the djellaba in Africa, without being bothered," he insists. "Why not us?"

Moreau is the president of Hommes en Jupe (Men in Skirts), an association of about 30 men in Poitiers, western France, who don skirts to go about their everyday lives. For them, getting dressed in the morning is less about style and more about political substance: they are fighting to reclaim an item of clothing last worn by Frenchmen more than 500 years ago.

"We're fighting against prejudice and cliches," says Moreau, a 39-year-old civil servant who quotes Virginia Woolf as a gender-bending inspiration. "Women fought for trousers; we're doing the same with the skirt."

The self-proclaimed militants of Poitiers know it will be hard to change attitudes, even if they are grateful to David Beckham for having stepped out in a sarong. For now, they must content themselves with buying their skirts online. Prices for a male design (and, yes, there are crucial differences: wider waist, narrower hips, absolutely no floral pattern) range from €100 (£79) to €400 on specialist websites in Europe and the US.

For the male skirt movement is not restricted to France. The bible of New York style, the Sartorialist, recently snapped men all over Europe wearing multicoloured kilt-like clobber. One British representative, Tim Stannard, wears skirts most days. He admits the "hostile" reactions of his friends and family were hard to cope with at first: "My little world is not ready for a man in a skirt, whatever style it is." But, after suffering a heart attack last year, Stannard is throwing caution to the wind. "If I don't do it now," he remarks, "there probably won't be another chance."