Stupid law, anyway

Henry Samuel has an article in the Telegraph about Parisian legal issues:

The rule banning women from dressing like men– namely by wearing trousers- was first introduced in 1800 by Paris' police chief and has survived repeated attempts to repeal it. The 1800 rule stipulated than any Parisienne wishing to dress like a man "must present herself to Paris' main police station to obtain authorisation". In 1892 it was slightly relaxed thanks to an amendment which said trousers were permitted "as long as the woman is holding the reins of a horse". Then, in 1909, the decree was further watered down when an extra clause was added to allow women in trousers on condition they were "on a bicycle or holding it by the handlebars".
In 1969, amid a global movement towards gender equality, the Paris council asked the city's police chief to bin the decree. His response was: "It is unwise to change texts which foreseen or unforeseen variations in fashion can return to the fore."
The latest attempt to remove the outmoded rule was in 2003, when a Right-wing MP from President Nicolas Sarkozy's UMP party wrote to the minister in charge of gender equality. The minister's response was: "Disuse is sometimes more efficient than (state) intervention in adapting the law to changing morays."
As Evelyne Pisier, a law professor whose book Le Droit des Femmes (The Rights of Women) unearthed the curious decree points out, given that trousers are compulsory for Parisian policewoman, they are all breaking the law.

Rico says maybe all they have to do is carry around a set of bicycle handlebars or horse reins; the law doesn't specifically say the handlebars have to be attached to the bicycle or the reins to a horse. Or maybe they could just repeal the damned stupid law. Better idea: several million Frenchwomen should show up at the main police station and demand authorization. Given the French love of documentation, that should only take a few thousand years to clear up the backlog...