The editor's personal opinion about the decline of Le Monokini on France's beaches and the outright ban of topless sunbathing on the artificial beaches in Paris.

If you are PC or a feminist you may be excused form reading this page, but in any event, puleese don't deluge me with cretinous emails about either because I was born before PC or the Monokini existed and hope to outlive them both.

Mon Dieu, je suis angoissé - I am distraught, because the saddest of sad news has been released to the effect that French women are turning against (turning their backs on?) topless sunbathing on the beaches of France. This is truly devastating news, the stuff of nightmares!

The Guardian newspaper, which I normally regard as a complete waste of trees or renewable resources, a rag which could not survive without New Labour advertising, has recently reported that France is seeing a decline in topless sunbathing among young people.

Is there a ban then? Well yes and no; PARISIAN sunbathers will no longer be allowed to go nude or wear g-strings on the capital's artificial beaches and risk a fine if they are caught baring their breasts or buttocks. City hall has issued a decree banning indecent clothing to preserve the tranquillity of the sandy beaches created on the banks of the River Seine every summer since 2001.

Defending the decree, city hall sports official Pascal Cherki told Le Parisien that indecent clothing "could have led to temptations and dangerous behaviour on the banks of the river." Rubbish! Complete and utter rubbish! The man is nothing but a PC twep!

Is Le Monokini doomed we ask? Well, young people set the trends and it is the younger women in France who are causing this distressing situation. With the greatest respect to all older or overweight ladies out there: we do not want to see your saggy bits, we do not want to see you heaving your naked dugs over a volleyball net, we do not wish to know that there is a sweaty old thong under all that quivering flesh which is where your once tight buttocks were, all tanned and round,  but as red blooded males we do enjoy the young and nubile female form as it should be displayed on the beach - semi naked. 

More like this and my ageing ticker will be no will tick no more!

My first trip to France was made in 1965 in a battered old Morris Minor 1000 with three other 18 year old lads whose primary motive to visit the French Riviera with a view to ogling as many bare breasted ladies as possible in the space of a two week camping holiday - and by God we did! Topless, as we knew it then, did not exist in England, and I have to say that female toplessness was a state of near Nirvana for any young male in those days.

So ladies young of France, please do not disappoint us, your most ardent fans in our twilight years just for a passing trend. Think of us with wasted limbs and our ever failing eyesight, and please reverse this unfortunate decision to not go topless on your beaches.