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A sculpture in the shape of a clitoris has been installed at a French university.

The piece – Le Clitoris – at the University of Poitiers has been paid for by the feminist group Friends of Women and Liberation (LAFL) to illustrate the fight for gender equality, the �������ǰ��ٱ��.

It was initially hoped that the giant metal clitoris would be sited next to a concrete penis sculpture that has stood on campus for about four decades.

The so-called “Bitard penis” has been vandalised many times since it was installed as part of a project by the Order of the Venerated Bitard, a student organisation established in the 1920s at the university whose devotees call themselves “bitards” in honour of a mythological creature that has the head of a marten, the body of a carp, the feathers of a peacock and the paws of a hare. However, the owner of the land on which the older sculpture sits, student group Crous, would not accommodate the new work by the British artist Matthew Ellis.

LAFL has said that it intends to host a “clitoris party” after the installation, with the group’s president, Emma Crews, wondering how the university “could have a giant penis on campus for so long” without a female equivalent.

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com