Being British and all, when we have problems, we tend to, you know, just grumble about them or go on social media to gripe.
Well, Europeans do it very differently, and that’s why Femen, the mostly-female Paris-based protest group, use their naked breasts (daubed with slogans) to draw attention to political issues they want the mass media to know about. And this time, they decided to disrupt a Muslim conference in France’s capital.
The Salon Musulman du Val d’Oise (which basically translates as ‘Muslim Conference in Val d’Oise’, which is an area just to the north west of Paris) covers loads of issues specific to Muslim life in France. A life which isn’t that easy following the government’s banning of the veil and tensions caused following the Islamist extremist terrorist attacks in Paris at the start of this year.
One such issue, was women. This was the debate – hosted by two men – that the women disrupted. Topless apart from the French for ‘Nobody makes me submit’ written on their chests, they heckled the debate – too boos and gasps of horror, reports MailOnline.
This is what Femen’s official Twitter says they were shouting:
The response by the conference was, perhaps appropriately – to remove the women from stage. It’s not exactly respectful to any conference to streak like that. But then one man rushed the stage to beat and kick one of the women – in full view of the audience – off of the stage.
The conference’s organisers are now pressing charges against the Femen protestors, but have not sought to identify the man who rushed the stage to beat them up.
While the talk was well-intentioned, or as well intentioned as any talk on women hosted by two men can be, the conference’s organisers have perhaps shown the limits of their empathy for women.
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Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.