A Paris court has decided  to permenantly shut down the controversial “Our Body” exhibition in the city. Several groups had protested about the ethics of displaying sliced and preserved dead bodies, particularly as it is suspected that several may be executed Chinese prisoners. Last Tuesday, the Judge Louis-Marie Raingeard decided to order the closure of this event, subject to this appeal.

Whilst I had no personal desire to visit the exhibition, particularly with its 15 Euro entry fee, I find the decision of the French justice to be very interesting. As one of the defence lawyers pointed out, this exhibition has already toured the world and has been seen by over 30 million people “sans qu’à aucun moment, aucune justice du monde n’ait songé à en interdire l’accès à quiconque” (without at any moment any judicial system even dreaming of preventing anyone from visiting).

So what makes France different from the rest of the world? Interestingly, the public prosecutor’s argument was the following ; “Dans notre société, il y a des tabous, des domaines dans lesquels on n’a pas le droit de pénétrer, des transgressions qu’il n’est pas possible d’autoriser” (in our society there are taboos, areas where we should not penetrate and infringements that it is not possible to authorise). It seems that the Judge accepted this argument, which the defence had criticised as being almost a religious decision, explaining that “The appropriate place for the corpse, according to the law, is the cemetery.”

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