Nudes are a major feature of the newest exhibition at Marseille’s Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilisations – and not only on the walls.

The museum, Mucem, is allowing visitors to discover their relationship to naturism by viewing the works of art naked, except for their shoes.

Eric Stefanut, of France’s FFN naturist organisation, said there was no objection to bare feet but insisting on footwear was a precaution against the museum’s parquet flooring. “It’s to avoid getting splinters,” he said.

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“France is the world’s leading tourist destination for naturists: its temperate climate and the presence of three seas have facilitated the establishment of communities, which – with the exception of Switzerland – have few real equivalents elsewhere in Europe, where naturism is practised more freely, outside established communities,” the museum said.

“Today, there is a new craze for nudity in nature, a craze that goes hand in hand with the quest for healthy, vegetarian diets and the use of natural therapies, meditation and yoga in the open air. These lifestyles, along with the rejection of the diktats that weigh down our bodies, are all keys to understanding the issues at stake in the naturism of yesterday and today.”

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Kieren Parker-Hall and Alex Parry were among 80 stripped-down visitors to Mucem’s August naturist slot and said seeing the exhibition in the nude was a “once in a lifetime” opportunity.

“There’s not a lot of naturist stuff in England,” Parker-Hall, 28, a web developer from Bath, told AFP. “It’s cold.”

Parry, 30, a stained glass artist from Bristol, agreed. “Being naked in England is seen as something a bit bizarre, shameful,” he said.