Paris finally says ‘Oui’ to women in jeans! A 200 year old law forbidding women to wear trousers in Paris has finally been revoked. The unenforced rule survived several previous attempts to repeal it, partly because officials didn’t think it was a priority.
The municipal order required Parisian women to seek permission from local police if they wanted to “dress like a man” by wearing trousers.
The original law was introduced in 1800 to prevent women taking certain jobs. Then it was modified in 1892 and 1909 to allow women to wear trousers if they were “holding a bicycle handlebar or the reins of a horse” but had officially remained on the books.
The France’s women’s rights minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem yesterday entirely revoked the legislation, branding it a “museum piece”. Watch the video report from Al Jazeera below.