Marseille’s Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations (Mucem) is a lattice-shrouded, shadow-throwing complex that juts over the waters of the city’s old port. Despite the seaside vibe, its code of conduct states that “perfect correctness, particularly in dress, is demanded of visitors; it is for example forbidden to walk around shirtless or barefoot.” Yet, on a recent afternoon, as a man strode across the entrance hall in nothing but a floral pareo and a lanyard—i.e., shirtless and barefoot—no one seemed bothered in the slightest. The museum, which was closed to the general public for the day, was offering a special tour of its big summer exhibition, “Paradis Naturistes” (“Naturist Paradises”). In keeping with the show’s theme, guests, such as the man in the lobby, would be allowed to shed their clothes, store them, and stroll through the galleries naked.
The museum was hosting the event in conjunction with the Fédération Française de Naturisme, which has represented the interests of naturists in France since 1950. Today, they number about 4.7 million—including the two and a half million who visit the country each year, making France Europe’s No. 1 destination for naturist tourism. A note about vocabulary: naturism, per the F.F.N., refers to “a manner of living in harmony with nature, characterized by the practice of communal nudity, and which consequently fosters self-respect, respect for others, and respect for the environment.” You can be a nudist without being a naturist, in other words, but you can’t be a naturist without being a nudist.
Why, one might ask, would a person be either? Naturists insist that public nudity—exposing oneself not only to others but to sun, air, sand, and sky—yields a range of benefits, from body acceptance to class erasure. “Behind it, there’s an ideology of equality that is very French,” Eric Stefanut, the man in the pareo and the F.F.N.’s communications director, told me, as he cooled himself with a white paper fan. “When someone is naked, you don’t know whether he’s a sales director or a mason. Nudity makes social difference invisible—it puts everyone on the same level.”
It’s also a way of experiencing familiar things in a novel manner. Recently, chapters of the F.F.N. have sponsored naked bike rides, naked camping trips, naked volleyball matches, naked pétanque, naked gardening, and a naked visit to a sewing-needle factory. Pretty much anything you can do dressed, naturists contend, you can do naked. (See the naked hikers of the Hautes-Alpes, trudging through passes of the Massif du Dévoluy in their snowshoes.) In July, the Association des Naturistes de Paris advertised a naked cocktail party, promising a spread of “charcuterie boards, cheese boards, whitefish rillettes with dill, candied cedar lemon hummus, peanut brownie, red fruit panna cotta, etc.” I couldn’t help being amused by their focus on the menu. In certain ways, it turns out, naked French people are a lot like clothed ones.
Traditionally, French naturists have been largely white, heterosexual, and left-leaning, “with teachers and professors particularly well represented,” as Stephen L. Harp observes in “Au Naturel: Naturism, Nudism, and Tourism in Twentieth-Century France.” Picture a married couple, Thierry and Sandrine, retired school principals who protested in ’68 and haven’t had a tan line in half a century. Particularly since COVID, though, the practice has been attracting a different set. According to the F.F.N., forty-three per cent of French naturists are under thirty years old. “The movement is getting younger and surfing the organic wave,” Le Parisien reported recently, while Le Progrès declared naturism “all the rage” for its “de-stressing” qualities. Even among textiles, as naturists call the clothes-wearing population, nakedness is having a moment. France 5 is airing the twelfth season of “Nus et Culottés” (“Naked and Cheeky”), a popular show in which a pair of friends set out pantsless and penniless on various adventures. And who can forget Philippe Katerine in the opening ceremony of the Olympics, crooning “Nu” (“Naked”) while sprawled across a fruit platter in bright-blue body paint? “Would there be wars if we were all naked?” Katerine sang. “Where do you hide a gun when you’re naked?”
Stefanut led me to a folding table, where the F.F.N. was offering cups of water, potato chips, gummy bears, and informational literature. One brochure tackled prejudices surrounding naturism, such as the idea that it’s dirty. “The self-respecting naturist NEVER goes out without a pareo or a little towel” to protect his posterior from any surface he sits on, the brochure explained. “And if I get an erection?” it continued. “Zero risk! Permanent nudity desexualizes your thoughts. The real question for men is more often, ‘Is it going to work again?’ ” A corollary to the precept that naturism is not inherently sexual holds that naturism is a family-friendly activity. The gallery tour cost eleven euros, but visitors under the age of eighteen could attend for free.
About eighty people, nearly all adults, had shown up for the tour. Each one was given a numbered tag and a yellow plastic bag before being shown to a storage room where they could disrobe. In the visitors went. Out they came, in coverups that would shield their genitals from civilian eyes—or, rather, shield civilian eyes from their genitals—until they crossed the museum floor to enter the exhibit.
