French Women Forsake Topless Habit

La fin d’une tradition? For decades the French were associated with images of topless ladies sunbathing on the Riviera and elsewhere. But it seems a new generation of women are no longer keen on the practice. An Elle magazine poll shows that as few as 2 percent of French women under 35 want to bare their breasts at the beach these days. France used to be considered the country that made feminism sexy, but that was in the ’60s, when the Vatican’s morality lectures made it even more fun to drop the swimsuit top. But times have changed. Some French women even think the practice is, well, vulgar. And what would Brigitte Bardot say?