14/10/2022 (Agence Europe) – In a ruling on 13 October, the European Court of Human Rights condemned France for violating Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights on freedom of expression. The case concerns a feminist activist, a member of Femen, who was given a suspended prison sentence for acts of sexual exhibition committed during a “performance” in the Madeleine church in Paris to denounce the Catholic Church’s position on abortion. The French courts “confined themselves to examining the question of the nudity of the applicant’s breasts in a place of worship without taking into consideration the meaning given to her performance”, the Strasbourg judges noted, pointing out that the “performance” had not been accompanied by any hate speech or incitement to violence. (VL)