Summer is the very Frenchest of times, all things considered. With the 14 juillet celebration as the mid-summer tentpole, the hallowed holiday period showing national devotion in travel form, and the array of summer produce putting good food and endless chat about it at the top of the menu, man it’s quite a time to be French. Or woman, I should exclaim, as it’s the female of the French species that takes centre stage in this post, coming to you from the most peaceful of cities as the vacationing flocks have abandoned the good ship Paris in search of more tropical climes.

Though the French government is more gender-balanced than many, when it comes to the top job,  it’s always been men at the helm, and let’s face it, with far-right Marine Le Pen the only female presidential rival around, let’s hope it stays that way for the time being. But right at the very, very top of the pile, albeit in strictly symbolic form, is a woman that gets often overlooked, though is there lurking around every corner whether you tend to notice her not. Enter stage left in all her finery, sporting her trademark Phrygian hat and generous décolleté, the national personification of France, Marianne.

Gods and Goddesses have represented all sorts of ideas and concepts since classical times, with the female figure of liberty being heartily embraced across the ages, and in particular during the French Revolution (for stunningly obvious reasons). Rather than being adopted as the national symbol directly, the figure picked up some allegorical accessories on the way, with her traditional slave cap being thought to represent freedom and emancipation, and her (often) bare and buxom chest representing motherhood and nourishment. The figures of reason and democracy added their symbolic flavour too, and this mighty emblem of a new revolutionary age was official adopted as the symbol of the new regime in 1792.

It took a while for it to properly catch on, and she’s morphed considerably in line with political priorities of the time, but she is now found all around, in town halls and schools, on stamps, coins, and atop those evil letters from the bank we’d all rather throw away. She also makes up a third of the official government logo along with the red, white and blue of the tricolore, and the national motto Liberté, égalité, fraternité (three really IS the magic number over here it seems). To see her in the ‘flesh’ as it were, head to either the Place Nation or Place République where you’ll find a bronze sculpture and statute respectively, or brave the Louvre and search out Eugene Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People (above), painted to commemorate the revolution of 1830, depicting her in full battle mode.

As the country’s republican symbol (Joan of Arc her monarchist equivalent) the fact that she’s a woman is in direct opposition to the line of male rulers that dominated for centuries, and her name Marianne is thought to be a nod to the popular working class names of Marie and Anne found at the other end of the social hierarchy to the likes of the ruling elite. For a long time she was a mostly anonymous figure, bending her look to satisfy the issues of the moment, but since 1969 official busts of her have been based on real-life famous females, beginning with Brigitte Bardot, and including the likes of Catherine Deneuve, Letitia Casta and Sophie Marceau.

Her current look (pictured above) was unveiled by President Macron in 2018, and she’s soon to appear as part of the official emblem for the 2024 Olympics due to take place in Paris, unless emerging zoonotic viruses have other ideas that is. With so many guises over the years, pick the one which best matches your inner French woman, and roll with it. I’ll be picking out mine whilst embracing another (unofficial) symbol of the country, doing my bit for the nation by helping reduce the Champagne mountain left in the wake of Coronavirus. France, you are WELCOME.