Paris (AFP)

Faced with the outcry over the publication of a survey on the outfits of high school girls, the weekly Marianne and the Ifop polling institute defended their approach on Wednesday, arguing about a subject "at the heart of the public debate".

The controversial poll was carried out in the wake of the mobilizations of middle and high school girls against "the correct dress" imposed on girls in certain establishments.

The Minister of Education Jean-Michel Blanquer had recommended him to dress in a "republican way" at school.

Ifop asked more than 2,000 people if they wanted "that public high schools prohibit girls from wearing" a series of clothes "on the premises of their establishment", including the "no bra", presented as a "top without a bra through which the tip of her nipples is visible", the tops "with plunging neckline" or even the "crop top" ("t-shirt showing the navel").

Result: "55% of French people want to ban the crop top for young high school girls" and "66% the + no bra +", recalled the institute on Twitter, based on drawings representing partially naked busty breasts.

A wave of outraged reactions on social networks followed Tuesday and Wednesday.

The leader of France rebellious Jean-Luc Mélenchon notably castigated on Twitter "Marianne, the anti-dictatorship newspaper of the Islamists" which "launches out in the propaganda polls for the dictatorship of the Puritans".

"You are gerber @IfopOpinion and @MarianneleMag", for her part reacted the feminist activist Caroline de Haas, denouncing the "sexualization of the bodies of children and very young girls" and the recovery of the "hashtag of the mobilization" high school student (# 14septembre and #balancetonbahut) "to share these horrors".

In the process, Ifop justified itself in a press release, recalling that it has measured "for several decades the support of the French for social movements".

Carrying out such a survey "appeared both relevant" and "consistent with the terms of the ongoing public debate," said the Institute, adding that the controversial pictograms were not submitted to respondents.

In a video published on her web TV, Marianne also defended herself through the voice of her journalist Hadrien Mathoux, who spoke of attacks "for the most part very unjust" and explained the interest of the poll for the weekly on a subject "at the heart of public debate".

"We consider that it is in our DNA not to try to break the thermometer on the subjects which would disturb, but rather to take the temperature" he launched, rejecting the "trial in puritanism probably drawn up by people who have not read our article ".

© 2020 AFP