The ad shows a voluptuous red-haired woman wearing only a necklace and a pair of high-heeled strap sandals and lying on her back, fondling a breast, in a pose of sexual rapture.
This advertising promoting Yves Saint Laurent's Opium perfume was banned in Britain in December because it was judged degrading to women, but it can still be seen on Paris streets and in magazines, a testimony to French open-mindedness.
This may change soon, however, as French women -- and a surprising number of men -- are now saying, "Enough is enough."
Protests against the use of what the French call "porno chic" are mounting. On Saturday, some 30 men and women demonstrated for the fourth consecutive weekend in front of a Paris shoe shop selling a brand that uses advertising they consider demeaning to women.
The group, which calls itself The Pack, has also printed a manifesto against sexist ads on the Internet, and has so far gathered more than 1,800 signatures in support of its cause. The founder of the group, historian Florence Montreynaud, said the final straw for her was an advertising for the Babette brand of creme fraiche.
It shows a woman from the neck down and wearing an apron upon which is printed the message, "Babette: I bind her, I whip her and sometimes she goes into the pan," which in French is a vulgar euphemism for sexual intercourse.
That ad also proved too much for the government's junior minister for women's rights, Nicole Pery, who Wednesday last week issued a report on the image of women in French advertising.
"For several years, and with increasing frequency over the past months, advertising has presented images of women which many judge humiliating and degrading," declared the report, which was drawn up by a group of advertising and human rights experts.
Some ads, it went on, even "flagrantly transgressed" the respect for human dignity.
The images they singled out for criticism included the Babette creme fraiche ad and a promotion for Magnum candy bars, one of which was stuck suggestively in a model's bikini briefs under the heading "For Man."
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