Au revoir, bikini: French women are no longer sunbathing topless

France’s summer is fast becoming a memory, and so is one of its iconic beach sights: the topless woman. As few as 2 percent of French women under 35 now say they want to bare their breasts, according to an Elle magazine poll this summer. It’s a far cry from the once-ubiquitous scenes of semi-nudity on the French Riviera, epitomized by 1960s blond bombshell Brigitte Bardot.

French young women today are more conformist. They’ve already attained freedom … So they’ve gotten lazy and taken it for granted.

Jean-Claude Kauffman, author of “Women’s bodies, men’s gaze: Sociology of naked breasts”

There are a few reasons why French women are more likely to button up: for starters, the economic recession has made people dress and act more conservatively, and women who feel they’ve achieved the feminist goals of the 1960s are now comfortable covering up. The second issue is, of course, camera phones…

I see lots of old men loitering around here. I have to stop them from taking photos on their phones. It happens all the time.

Nathan Assouline, beach monitor in Paris, discouraging women from going topless

Europe topless