No trousers for women, no odd names for children... some of France's stranger laws.

On Thursday, a couple in France won the right to call their son Daemon after a character in the popular US TV series The Vampire Diaries. Prosecutors had brought the Defontaines to court under a French law that prevents parents giving names that would be “contrary to the interests of a child”.

REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol

But others laws in France may seem just as odd to the casual observer.

Here are a few examples:

• A text introduced on 17 November, 1799, stated that any woman “wishing to dress as a man” must obtain permission from the local prefecture. This law has never been
  

• repealed although exceptions were introduced later for women holding a horse’s reins or the handles of a bicycle. It wasn’t until 1980 that woman were allowed to wear trousers in the Assemblee Nationale and under article L.120-2 of the work code, an employer can force a woman to wear a skirt at work if they have a justifiable reason.

• Former French president Valery Giscard d’Estaing has fallen foul of a French law which only allows citizens to be buried in a cemetery. Giscard wants to be buried in a garden in Authon in the Loir et Cher region of central France where his wife’s
  

• family have had a house for many years. His wife Anne-Aymone Giscard d’Etaing has bought a plot of land in the village on which she planned to build a small chapel. But the local bylaws state Giscard can only be buried there if he has been refused a place in the village cemetery. And his burial plot must be at least 35 metres from the village boundary.

• According to the Napoleonic code, written in 1804, woman are forbidden to ride a
  

• horse

  with one leg each side.
• A law introduced on 5 April, 1910 makes it illegal to kiss on French railways
• It is forbidden to photograph members of some police forces. A decree issued on 27 June, 2008 states the right to anonymity of the police in certain cases. This includes anti-terrorist brigades, special intervention forces, etc.