Béziers train poster: French court clears controversial ad - BBC News
A court clears a controversial poster which critics argued encouraged violence against women.
The ad was posted months after the real-life murder of a woman in similar circumstances

A French court has ruled that posters showing a woman tied to train tracks did not promote violence against women.

The posters were put up around the town of Béziers last December to celebrate the arrival of high-speed TGV trains. They carried the caption: "With the TGV, she would have suffered less."

The ads faced a legal challenge from a number of feminist groups and criticism by France's equality minister.

But the court said they were legal, despite the questionable humour.

The posters were launched four months after 34-year-old Emilie Hallouin died when she was tied to TGV tracks by her husband and hit by a train in a murder-suicide in northern France.

Many Twitter users, including French Senator Laurence Rossignol, drew parallels between the posters and the tragic news story.

This Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Laurence Rossignol This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.

But the far-right mayor of Béziers, Robert Ménard, defended his campaign, accusing critics of "political correctness" and pointing to a history of such images in old films and cartoons.

This Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Robert Ménard This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.

The court in the southern city of Montpellier said the posters had been designed to provoke a reaction, and did not encourage violence against any specific group, including women.

After the French court threw out the complaint, Mr Ménard tweeted that the case had been "an inquisition in petticoats".