The French supreme court threw out prosecution claims that a feminist who staged a topless protest against President Putin had committed an act of public indecency.
The Cour de Cassation said it was legal for women to display their breasts in public so long as their “behaviour was incorporated into an act of political protest”. The ruling came after Paris prosecutors took action against Iana Zhdanova, 32, a Ukrainian member of the feminist Femen movement, who had stabbed a waxwork of Mr Putin at the Grévin museum in 2014. The words “Kill Putin” were written on her chest.
Ms Zhdanova was charged with vandalism as well as “sexual exhibition”, an offence that carries a maximum sentence of one year in prison. She said that she