Activists from the animal rights group PETA, wearing bikinis and crocodile masks, stand outside a store of the French fashion label Hermes in Melbourne on March 16, 2021, to protest against their use of crocodile skins and the recent purchases by Hermes and LVMH of crocodile farms in Australia's Northern Territory. (Photo by William West/AFP Photo)

French-Swiss street artist Saype poses as he works on his artwork on a floating barge over the Golden Horn in Istanbul, Turkey on October 23, 2020, as part of the “Beyond Walls” project to create a spray-painted “human chain” across the world to encourage humanity and equality. (Photo by Murad Sezer/Reuters)

French actress Marie Cornillon wearing body paint and a headgear with bull horns, poses in front of the Nimes arena with a sign inscribed “Abolissons la corrida” (Abolish corrida bullfighting) as part of a protest by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) animal rights group to ban bullfighting in France, on November 16, 2022. (Photo by Pascal Guyot/AFP Photo)

“Josephine Baker (June 3, 1906 – April 12, 1975) was an American-born French dancer, singer, and actress. Nicknamed the “Bronze Venus”, the “Black Pearl”, and even the “Créole Goddess” in anglophone nations.

Baker was the first African American female to star in a major motion picture and to integrate an American concert hall, and to become a world-famous entertainer. She is also noted for her contributions to the Civil Rights Movement in the United States (she was offered the unofficial leadership of the movement by Coretta Scott King in 1968 following Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination, but turned it down), for assisting the French Resistance during World War II and for being the first American-born woman to receive the French military honor, the Croix de guerre”.

Photo: American entertainer Josephine Baker in costume for her famous “banana dance”. Baker was an overnight sensation when she arrived in Paris in the mid-1920s. (Photo by Walery/Getty Images)

What do superheroes do when they’re not busy fighting bad guys and saving the world from destruction? Perhaps they’re drawing strength alone in the peace and quiet of the great outdoors. That’s the premise of French photographer Benoit Lapray‘s photo-manipulation series “The Quest for the Absolute.”

Tahiti, French Polynesia, June 5, 2016: Surfer Courtney Conlogue. ESPN The Magazine's The Body Issue set out seven years ago with one mission: to celebrate and explore the athletic form through powerful images and interviews. The cornerstone of each annual issue is The Bodies We Want photo portfolio, which features roughly 20 of the world's most elite athletes posing nude. (Photo by Steven Lippman for ESPN The Magazine Body Issue)

A woman looks at cows on the Mare e Sol beach in Coti-Chiavari, on the French Mediterranean island of Corsica, on May 17, 2017. A herd of some thirty wild cattle take up their summer residence on stretch of beach each year. (Photo by Pascal Pochard-Casabianca/AFP Photo)

French mounted bullfighter Lea Vicens is gored by her first bull and falls off her horse during the 31st day of the San Isidro bullfighting festival at Las Ventas bullring in Madrid, Spain, 10 June 2017. (Photo by Victor Lerena/EPA)