Catholic church topless 'slut' protester wins human rights case

• The ECHR has ruled that a woman's human rights were violated after she was given a suspended prison sentence.
• Eloise Bouton was charged with sexual exposure after protesting topless in a famous Catholic church.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that a woman's human rights were violated after she was given a suspended prison sentence for protesting topless at a Catholic church.

On December 20, 2013, Eloïse Bouton, then a member of the Ukrainian feminist activist group Femen, took to the altar of the famed La Madeleine church in Paris to protest the Catholic Church's strict ban on abortion.

Her protest performance involved walking to the altar of the church topless, with the words "344 slut" written on her body, a reference to a famous open letter of 343 French women who admitted to having an abortion in 1971. In the backlash, they were dubbed 'salopes' – translated as "sluts."

She also held pieces of calf liver to represent an aborted baby Jesus, according to the court documents. "Christmas is canceled" was also scrawled across her back.

In 2014, the French courts gave her a suspended prison sentence for sexual exposure, but this week, the ECHR ruled this sentence violated Bouton's freedom of expression and that the French courts must pay her €9,800 ($9,569.65) in damages, costs, and expenses.

The ruling stated, "The Court concluded that the domestic courts had not struck a balance, in an appropriate manner, between the interests at stake and that the interference with the applicant's freedom of expression."

Bouton told Insider, "I didn't believe in a positive outcome anymore, but the ruling is historical. It's going to set legal precedents, and what it means for women and militant feminists who use their bodies to protest is that they may now be allowed to do so in France."

She said she thinks the EHCR ruling is a sign of progress since 2013, saying, "I don't know if France would have sued me for sexual exposure in 2022. There's still a lot of problems, of course, but we're moving forward."