The popular French beach town of Les Sables-d’Olonne is now urging visitors to dress appropriately when they’re out on its streets. More and more people have been strolling through the town in swimwear, said mayor Yannick Moreau, calling this “indecent behavior.” It’s time, he added, to make the rule crystal clear: it is forbidden to walk around Les Sables-d’Olonne shirtless or in swim trunks. A little decency, please!
“We care about our living environment, and I’ve asked the city police to enforce this rule,” he said. Concretely, the penalty is a €38 fine (about $40). It’s a matter of respecting residents who don’t want someone half-naked wandering through their town, and of upholding a basic public hygiene standard in markets and stores, the town hall chief argued. “To show off your chest muscles and your best swimwear in Les Sables-d’Olonne, you have eleven kilometers of beach at your disposal.”
With a wink, the town’s poster about dress etiquette isn’t shy about the evolution of beachwear. “After 200 years of elegance in Les Sables, we don’t want to end up in our alleys in nothing but underwear!” the caption proclaims above images of five people dressed in increasingly different outfits meant to illustrate the evolution of beachgoers. It begins with a man in traditional French attire with a cap and a woman in a long dress, hat, and parasol, then a tourist in sneakers, shorts and a shirt, and finally two men with bare chests—one barefoot in swim trunks, the other in shorts, socks, and flip-flops.
