French nudists get cheeky with theme park and museum outings

PARIS - AFP

After a nude yoga class in a Paris park and a "no clothes day" at the city's trendiest art museum, hundreds of naturists are due to descend on a theme park near the French capital July 1 for a spot of trampolining.

France may be the world's top destination for naturist tourism with up to four million people holidaying "au naturel" every year but up until recently, French nudists have been rather more coy about shedding their clothes in the city.

"We used to think it better not to show ourselves too much," said Cedric Amato, of the Paris naturism group ANP, which claims that the capital and its suburbs are home to as many as 88,000 nudists. But all that is changing now. Naturists are actively promoting a summer nudist zone, opened last year, in Paris' biggest park, the Bois de Vincennes. And there is no hiding their naked ambition to make further inroads.

Earlier this month was when 30,000 people applied for a nude visit to the Palais de Tokyo art museum in the city, even though there were only 161 places available.

This month, nudists organized a mass yoga class there, doing their sun salutations and downward-facing dog poses together, while on July 1 hundreds are due to visit the Aventure Land theme park near Paris.