PARIS — It sounded like an April Fools’ joke. A French town toppling a bust of Marianne, the symbolic heroine of the French Revolution, because she was too . . . buxom?
France 3 television reported last week that a bust of Marianne that graced the town hall of Neuville-en-Ferrain near the northern city of Lille for two years had been knocked off her pedestal after local officials decided her proportions were too generous.
Defending the decision — his arms folded across his chest — Mayor Gerard Codron told France 3: “We had to make a decision and avoid the criticisms that were regularly expressed during ceremonies with regard to this Marianne.”
“So we decided to change the Marianne,” he said, adding: “Laetitia Casta took over!”
Casta, a French model whose silhouette is, ironically, usually described as curvy, was chosen as the template for the new Marianne.
