Lycée Branly in Nogent-sur-Marne, a well-to-do neighbourhood just east of Paris, has been checked pupils’ clothes every morning since the beginning of the new school year began last week.

One student at the school told daily regional paper Le Parisien: “The teachers says to us ‘it’s not the holidays anymore, you leave your shorts at home’. No more skirts, tank tops or low-cut blouses at the sixth form.

“They ask us to go home and change if we’re not correctly dressed.”

Parents at the school have organised a meeting with teachers other school staff on the subject this Saturday.

“The head of the school should be vigilant when it comes to clothing that may be indecent, why not?” one mother said to Le Parisien.

“But all this is creating differences between the sexes. It’s stigmatising boys as potential peeping Toms when we ask girls to cover their legs all the time.

“We have nothing in writing [from the school]. There has to a meeting, and if nothing is specified in the school rules, these spoken instructions just won’t stick.”