Wherever and whenever the action, it will not involve the chainsaw, which is sitting charred and partially melted on the table in front of us, the casualty of a recent suspected arson attack on FEMEN HQ.

Nor will it involve Shevchenko, 23, who, having only recently been granted refugee status in France, is unable to leave the country. “Still,” says the blonde Ukrainian, cheerfully: “We have been contacted by British women who want to be activists and we have trained one already. We are looking to organise a team. Strategically, London is one of the important countries for us.”

To name but a handful of FEMEN’s recent actions, the militant feminists known for thrusting their slogan-daubed chests in the faces of political correctness, religion and anyone representing male “dictatorship” have ambushed Russian president Vladimir Putin and former Italian leader Silvio Berlusconi; burned a Salafist flag in front of the Great Mosque of Paris in support of a jailed Tunisian FEMEN militant, and staged a “Pope no more” protest in the Vatican.

In May, a French activist was arrested after staging a mock suicide in Notre Dame in Paris, 24 hours after a far-Right historian killed himself in the cathedral. The group now has 12 branches and more than 300 active members around the world, including in Europe, Canada and Brazil.

Sitting in her Paris “office”, the upper floor of a rundown former public wash house, in an equally rundown arrondissement of north Paris, Shevchenko says she spends every waking hour planning actions. A leather punchbag hangs from the rafters. Activists are metaphorically expected to be able to deliver a good punch and then run.

As well as FEMEN’s headquarters and training centre, it was also, until very recently, Shevchenko’s home. A few days before we meet, a late-night fire started near an open window and swept through the attic space FEMEN activists were using as a bedroom. The blaze erupted just a few hours, she says, after an anonymous caller warned: “I want you to burn.” French police are investigating, but Shevchenko is convinced it was a “political act”.

Shevchenko, the epitome of a tall, strapping Slavic warrior queen, picks her way across the sooty remains of her worldly goods: an expensive camera, shoes, clothes, photographs, a laptop computer... “I lost everything, even my papers giving me refugee status in France,” she says. She picks up a flimsy cotton bag. “All I have is what’s in this and the clothes I’m wearing. Now it’s easy for me to move around,” she says, laughing.

“People ask why I laugh but this is my life; it’s what I’ve chosen and it’s the life I feel comfortable with. I don’t care about material things. With this kind of life you are ready to be attacked. You live with the permanent danger of enemies who want to stop you. This is the air I breathe. Besides, the fight is only worth something if people want to stop you. It means you are getting to them, touching them, irritating them, and that’s our aim.” Nevertheless, the charred chainsaw has a certain sentimental value. In 2012 Shevchenko used it to fell a 13-feet high Orthodox wooden cross in Ukraine in support of the jailed Russian feminists Pussy Riot, a well-publicised stunt that led to worldwide recognition but forced her to flee her homeland.

Arriving in Paris, Gallic sisters assured her there was no real need for a radical feminist movement like FEMEN in France. Shevchenko discovered otherwise.

“On July 14, revolution day here, we tried to go out but the door was blocked by police. They said it was for our own safety. Later when they allowed us out, I realised we were being followed,” she says.  “I was irritated because it meant even in France people are not able to move freely. I left Ukraine and came to France to feel safer, but it was the same situation all over again ... where are the societies where a woman has a normal right to exist? They don’t exist. Even here I am forced to live wondering when the next attack will come.”

FEMEN was founded in 2008 in Ukraine to protest against sexism, prostitution and the exploitation of women in the former Soviet state. Shevchenko, a journalism graduate and the second daughter of an army officer and a factory worker, joined a year later. 

For two years nobody in Ukraine took much notice of the strident young women with flowers in their hair, brandishing placards. Then they took off their tops and daubed the slogans on their bodies and the whole world sat up. Today, FEMEN describes itself as a radical movement opposed to “patriarchy” and its three manifestations — “the sexual exploitation of women, dictatorship and religion”.

“At the beginning my mother demanded I stop (campaigning topless) and she had a sort of nervous breakdown over it,” she says. “But I taught my parents to understand what I am doing and now I think she’s proud of me in a way.  But I am sure she thinks I will stop all this if I find a man. Luckily for me, my sister, who is five years older, is living a more classic life. She married at 19, had a child and now takes care of him and works. She’s not FEMEN, but she’s tough.  As I say, that’s the way it is in Ukraine; the choice for women is prostitute or housewife.”

Protesting topless, however, cost Shevchenko her well-paid job working in the Kyiv mayor’s press office. Her dismissal for political as opposed to professional reasons still rankles.

In France she has earned public and even official recognition. Last December the magazine Madame Figaro included Shevchenko in its list of the world’s top 20 iconic women. Recently, Shevchenko was revealed as the inspiration for an image of Marianne, the mythical female symbol of the French Republic portrayed on French stamps. Former Marianne models have included Brigitte Bardot and Catherine Deneuve. “Well, who else to embody modern feminism in France if not FEMEN?” asks Shevchenko.

The stamp sent Right-wing Christian groups in France into fits of apoplexy and sparked calls for a boycott of it. Shevchenko responded in kind, tweeting: “Now all homophobes, extremists, fascists will have to lick my ass when they want to send a letter.”

Of FEMEN’s impending assault on London and Britain, Shevchenko will not give details, but suggests the fight will centre on the “Islamic oppression of women” and its symbols “the veil and sharia law”. She has no truck with political correctness.

“I watch the BBC and see intelligent women and ‘Muslim feminists’ — an interesting concept in itself — argue they are free to wear the hijab. But their words hide the fact that millions of other Muslim women are obliged to do it. I don’t agree that it’s a choice,” she says, her voice crackling with anger.

“People accused us of being anti-Islam, anti-Christian ... we are not, we are anti-religion. All religion. People say ‘Why do you protest topless, it is hurtful to our religion’. Well, women’s breasts are a clear symbol of women’s fight. We have reclaimed our bodies.

“I hear the news of women’s oppression in places like Egypt and I feel a huge need to take off my clothes and show my body as a political statement. And we have clearly touched a nerve because the FEMEN movement is growing around the world. I cannot travel to London, but FEMEN is coming ... soon.”

London, you have definitely been warned.

Via: standard.co.uk

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