According to a ruling by a French appeal court, France refused to accept smiles, including a Mona Lisa smile in passport photos.

An unarmed French civil servant sued the French authorities after his initial passport application was rejected for a smile in the passport picture.

He lost the suit in 2014 as a French court ruled that he grinned obviously in that photo.

Decisions were made by the French Courts based on regulations concerning passport photos, which provide that the expression of the applicant should be neutral with the mouth closed and one must certainly not smile.

The French civil servant and his lawyer both insisted that it was just a smile with one’s mouth shut while keeping a neutral expression, like what Mona Lisa does in the famous painting of Leonardo da Vinci.

Furthermore, their argument emphasized that the smile was to give depressed France a morale boost and hoped the appeal court’s approval would make French people smile.

Unfortunately,  their good wish failed to amuse French justice and the authorities.

People have to endure the fact that no matter you are cheerful or depressed, the passport photos only show poker faces.

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