A 200-year-old law forbidding women to wear trousers in Paris has finally been revoked.
A 200-year-old law forbidding women to wear trousers in Paris has finally been revoked.
On January 31, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, France's minister of women's rights, made it officially impossible to arrest a woman for wearing trousers in the French capital.
The law required women to ask police for special permission to "dress as men" in Paris, or risk being taken into custody.
In 1892 and 1909 the rule was amended to allow women to wear trousers, "if the woman is holding a bicycle handlebar or the reins of a horse."
The law was kept in place until now, despite repeated attempts to repeal it, in part because officials said the unenforced rule was not a priority, and part of French "legal archaeology."
In July however, in a public request directed at Ms Vallaud-Belkacem, Alain Houpert, a senator and member of the conservative UMP party, said the "symbolic importance" of the law "could injure our modern sensibilities," and he asked the minister to repeal it.
Ms Vallaud-Belkacem agreed, and in a published statement on Jan. 31st wrote: "This ordinance is incompatible with the principles of equality between women and men, which are listed in the Constitution, and in France's European commitments.
"From that incompatibility follows the implicit abrogation of the ordinance."
The restriction focused on Paris because French Revolutionary rebels in the capital said they wore trousers, as opposed to the knee-breeches, or the "culottes," of the bourgeoisie, in what was coined the "sans-culottes" movement. Women rebels in the movement demanded the right to wear trousers as well, but were forbidden to do so.
法国近日正式废除了已有200多年历史的禁止女性穿裤子的法律。
1月31日，法国妇女权利部部长娜雅・瓦洛・贝尔卡桑正式宣布不得在法国首都巴黎逮捕因穿裤子而被视为违法的女性。
这项法律规定任何想要“像男人那样穿裤子”的巴黎女性必须获得当地警察批准，否则有可能会被拘留。
1892年和1909年，当局对这条法律进行了修改，规定“女性在骑自行车或骑马时”可以穿裤子。
尽管曾数次有人试图废除这项法律，但都未能成功，部分原因是政府官员认为这项法律实际并未执行，不需要优先处理，而且这也是法国“法律考古”的一部分。
但2012年7月，参议员兼人民运动联盟保守党成员艾伦•胡佩特在一项递给娜雅・瓦洛・贝尔卡桑的公开申请中表示，这项法律的“象征意义”可能会“削弱我们的现代意识”，并请求部长撤销此项法律。
娜雅・瓦洛・贝尔卡桑同意了他的诉求，并在今年1月31日的公开声明中表示：“法国的宪法及法国对欧洲的承诺书中明确列有男女平等的原则，而这项法令违反了男女平等原则”。
“据此我们应废除此条法令。”
这项禁令之所以针对巴黎是由于法国大革命期间巴黎的革命者进行的“无套裤汉”运动，他们身穿裤子，与穿马裤（也称为裙裤）的资产阶级形成对照。这次运动中的女性革命者也要求穿裤子，但却被禁止这么做。
archaeology: 考古学