Brigitte Bardot sunbathing in a 'monokini' in 1960. Photograph: © Bettmann/Corbis
For some it's the stuff of naff Côte d'Azur postcards. For others it's a symbol of the feminist struggle in France. Topless sunbathing was once the summer battleground of French post-1968 society – educated middle classes insisted that peeling off was a women's right, while family groups claimed exposed nipples would scare children.
For decades, France has prided itself on being the world capital of seaside semi-nudity. Now the nation is facing a bikini-top backlash. A younger generation of women are covering up, citing new feminist priorities, skin cancer fears and a rebellion against the cult of the fetished body beautiful.
French academics and historians have spent the early summer months pondering the sociological meaning of the demise of France's once-favourite piece of beachwear, the "monokini" – the bottom half of a bikini with no top.
Angelique Chrisafis: 'It's become a symbol of French summers' Link to this audio
Since the 1970s, when the French state refused to ban "le topless" on beaches, women's semi-nudity has become a symbol of summer in France. It was a point of national pride that the same freedom to strip off in public was off-limits in other more prudish nations such as the US.
Women's bodies have always been the centre of national social debates in France. Jean-Marie Le Pen's far-right Front National once produced a poster warning against immigration which showed carefree French topless sunbathers in the 1990s against a doomsday prediction of burka-clad women invading French beaches in the year 2010.
But modern French 18- to 30-year-olds are rejecting toplessness, boosting the sales of two-piece bikinis and old-fashioned bathing suits.
A poll found 24% of women were perturbed by toplessness on beaches, while 57% said it was OK in a garden. Along the artificial summer beach Paris Plages, which opened on the Seine this week, topless sunbathing is punishable with a fine. The mayor of Saint Tropez has argued that the postcard myth of the feminine "charms" of the southern elitist sunspot are outdated as fewer women go topless.
French media insist that it tends to be the over 60s – women involved in the initial women's lib struggle - who dispense with tops. One swimsuit saleswoman said that going topless is no longer seen as a feminist act, as young women see equal pay and work-family balance as more pressing battlegrounds.
At the heart of this summer's cover-up phenomenon is historian Christophe Granger's new book, Corps d'été, a social history of the beach and the body in France.
He said: "In the 1960s and 1970s, toplessness was linked to the women's liberation movement, sexual liberation and a return to nature.
"Historical feminist writing details how the row over toplessness was a struggle for women to do what they liked with their bodies. What has been projected on to it today are different values, identified, not with equality but desire, sexualisation of the body, voluptuousness and the body perfect.
"It's less about women feeling at ease and free. It has been linked to the harsh cult of the body beautiful, where no imperfection is tolerated."
In some areas, the battle goes on. Les Tumultueuses, a group of young militant feminists, are still fighting for topless bathing rights in public swimming pools, denouncing the fact that men and women's bodies are treated differently. "My body, if I want, when I want" is one of the slogans they have borrowed from the 1970s struggle. Two months ago, when a group of them removed their tops and dived in to Les Halles public pool in Paris, pool assistants tried in vain to get them to cover up.
Previous topless commando raids on public pools have seen police intervene to stop them. Attendants at Paris's notoriously strict public pools have argued that if toplessness was allowed, swimmers would take more and more liberties such as arriving with no swimming hat or trunks.
For decades, France has prided itself on being the world capital of seaside semi-nudity. Now the nation is facing a bikini-top backlash. A younger generation of women are covering up, citing new feminist priorities, skin cancer fears and a rebellion against the cult of the fetished body beautiful.
French academics and historians have spent the early summer months pondering the sociological meaning of the demise of France's once-favourite piece of beachwear, the "monokini" – the bottom half of a bikini with no top.
Angelique Chrisafis: 'It's become a symbol of French summers' Link to this audio
Since the 1970s, when the French state refused to ban "le topless" on beaches, women's semi-nudity has become a symbol of summer in France. It was a point of national pride that the same freedom to strip off in public was off-limits in other more prudish nations such as the US.
Women's bodies have always been the centre of national social debates in France. Jean-Marie Le Pen's far-right Front National once produced a poster warning against immigration which showed carefree French topless sunbathers in the 1990s against a doomsday prediction of burka-clad women invading French beaches in the year 2010.
But modern French 18- to 30-year-olds are rejecting toplessness, boosting the sales of two-piece bikinis and old-fashioned bathing suits.
A poll found 24% of women were perturbed by toplessness on beaches, while 57% said it was OK in a garden. Along the artificial summer beach Paris Plages, which opened on the Seine this week, topless sunbathing is punishable with a fine. The mayor of Saint Tropez has argued that the postcard myth of the feminine "charms" of the southern elitist sunspot are outdated as fewer women go topless.
French media insist that it tends to be the over 60s – women involved in the initial women's lib struggle - who dispense with tops. One swimsuit saleswoman said that going topless is no longer seen as a feminist act, as young women see equal pay and work-family balance as more pressing battlegrounds.
At the heart of this summer's cover-up phenomenon is historian Christophe Granger's new book, Corps d'été, a social history of the beach and the body in France.
He said: "In the 1960s and 1970s, toplessness was linked to the women's liberation movement, sexual liberation and a return to nature.
"Historical feminist writing details how the row over toplessness was a struggle for women to do what they liked with their bodies. What has been projected on to it today are different values, identified, not with equality but desire, sexualisation of the body, voluptuousness and the body perfect.
"It's less about women feeling at ease and free. It has been linked to the harsh cult of the body beautiful, where no imperfection is tolerated."
In some areas, the battle goes on. Les Tumultueuses, a group of young militant feminists, are still fighting for topless bathing rights in public swimming pools, denouncing the fact that men and women's bodies are treated differently. "My body, if I want, when I want" is one of the slogans they have borrowed from the 1970s struggle. Two months ago, when a group of them removed their tops and dived in to Les Halles public pool in Paris, pool assistants tried in vain to get them to cover up.
Previous topless commando raids on public pools have seen police intervene to stop them. Attendants at Paris's notoriously strict public pools have argued that if toplessness was allowed, swimmers would take more and more liberties such as arriving with no swimming hat or trunks.
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