French police have opened an investigation after a young woman claimed she was beaten by three men in broad daylight for wearing a skirt.

Elisabeth, a 22-year-old student, said she was punched in the face in the eastern city of Strasbourg on Friday after three men “complained about me wearing a skirt”.

Also read | France’s iconic Eiffel Tower evacuated due to bomb scare

The government called the incident “very incident” and said it is unacceptable. 

Sharing her ordeal to France Bleu Alsace radio, the student said she walking home when one of the three men said: “look at that whore in a skirt”. 

She said two men then held her as the third one hit her on her face, causing a black eye. All the men fled. 

Elisabeth’s photograph with a bruised face went viral on Twitter, triggering furious comments from the netizens. 

“The facts as stated are very serious,” said government spokesman Gabriel Attal, as quoted by news agency AFP. 

“In France, we must be able to go out dressed in the street as we want. We cannot accept that today in France, a woman feels in danger, either harassed, threatened or beaten because of how she dresses.”

Meanwhile, in another case, a Frenchman on Thursday was handed a two month suspended jail sentence for assaulting two women one of whose attire he described was too short.