In France, the first sex shops opened in 1970, but the morality of our Spanish neighbors was protected by the vigilant censorship of the Franco dictatorship. At the start of the 1970s, when sexuality was gradually ceasing to be taboo, the Catalans took advantage of the arrival at the cinema in Perpignan of the “Last Tango in Paris” to carry out very targeted cinema tourism.
In the archives of the “Obs”
Which world, which French people, which society told “Le Nouvel Observateur” (which became “L’Obs” in 2014) half a century ago? Every weekend, we offer you an article, interview, report, portrait or letter from readers drawn from our archives.
In the report that we republish below, Hervé Chabalier explains: “Barcelona is two and a half hours from Perpignan, a trifle when it comes to transgressing – without risk – Franco’s prohibitions. And as long as you are there, you might as well take a cure for real porn cinema. Of the nine cinemas in Perpignan, five permanently show “sexy” films. »
These tourists sometimes brought back magazines – erotic in general, but sometimes also “Charlie Hebdo”, “Red”, “Le Canard enchaîné” or even “Le Nouvel Obs”, at the risk of confiscation at Spanish customs on returning. Across the Pyrenees, an editorialist was indignant: ” The French manage to make money by broadcasting banned films intended for despicable beings. We must ensure that not a single Spaniard
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