French minister defends topless rights

France's interior minister Tuesday defended the right of women to sunbathe topless on beaches, after a police warning for a group who stripped off on the southern coast sparked an outcry.

French gendarmes patrolling a beach in Mediterranean seaside town Sainte-Marie-la-Mer last week asked a group of topless sunbathers to cover up in response to a complaint from a family, the local gendarmerie said on Facebook.

It acknowledged their actions had been "clumsy" but said the officers wanted only to calm the situation, insisting there had been no official order to ban topless sunbathing in the town.

AFP