Parisian women in France have finally been allowed to wear trousers.The 200-year-old law that required women to receive special permission from police “to dress as men” has finally been repealed by France’s minister of women’s rights.

The archaic law banning women from wearing trousers  unenforced for decades , dated back to female French Revolutionary rebels in Paris who were forbidden to wear pants like their male counterparts. The rule was later amended in 1892 and 1909 to allow them if they were on a bike or a horse.

Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, France’s minister of women’s rights, said in a statement that the ban, imposed on November 17, 1800, was incompatible with modern French values and laws.

“Banning women from trouser-wearing was thus an effective way of banning them from the rank and file of the revolution — and of keeping them, basically, in their place,” announced the official

The municipal order required Parisian women to seek permission from local police if they wanted to “dress like a man” by wearing trousers.

The law 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.

Answering a question in the Official Journal of the French Senate, Vallaud-Belkacem said that while it had not been formally struck down, the order was in effect abrogated.

By UP