FEMEN (Ukrainian: Фемен) is a Ukrainian protest group based in Kiev, founded in 2008. The organisation became internationally known for organizing topless protests against sex tourists, international marriage agencies, sexism and other social, national and international ills. Some of the goals of the organisation are: "To develop leadership, intellectual and moral qualities of the young women in Ukraine" and "To build up the image of Ukraine, the country with great opportunities for women".

Female university students between 18 and 20 years old formed the backbone of the movement when it was formed in 2008. In Kiev, there are about 300 active participants in the movement. There are few male members of FEMEN. The group comprises some 20 topless activists and 300 fully clothed members. Most of its demonstrations are staged in Kiev, but FEMEN has also held actions in cities like Odessa,Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhia. The goals of the organization is "to shake women in Ukraine, making them socially active; to organize in 2017 a women's revolution." The group has stated it has enjoyed limited success in pushing its agenda. As of late April 2010 the organisation is contemplating becoming a political party to run for seats in the October 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election.

Alain Soral (born October 2, 1958) is a French essayist, and film maker, as well as being the author of several polemical essays. He is the brother of the actress Agnès Soral. Soral lives in the French Basque Country. Since June 2004, he has been a boxing coach. Alain Soral considers himself to be in the political "avant garde" of French society, claiming that his remarks and comments are always at first condemned and later widely accepted by the mainstream French public.

Soral was born in Aix-les-Bains, Savoie and grew up in the suburbs of Annemasse (department of Haute-Savoie), where he attended a local primary school. When Soral was about 12, his family moved to Meudon so that he could go to a reputable private Catholic high school, the Collège Stanislas de Paris. Soral spent two years doing small jobs before being accepted into the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts at 20, where he studied for two years. Soral was then taken in by a family of academics, who encouraged him to enrol at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, where he attended lectures given by Cornelius Castoriadis.

Caroline Fourest (born September 19, 1975 in Aix-en-Provence) is a French feminist writer, journalist, columnist (every Saturday in Le Monde and every Friday on France culture), editor of the magazine "ProChoix" (antiracist and secularist), and author of Frère Tariq (Brother Tariq), a critical look at the works of the Muslim intellectual Tariq Ramadan.

A graduate in sociology and political science, as a journalist she has written many books on such topics as the conservative right, the pro-life movement (France and USA), and on current fundamentalist trends in Abrahamic religions (Jewish, Christian, and Muslim). She served as President of the Gay and Lesbian Center ("Centre Gay et Lesbien"), beginning in 1999.

In March 2006, she signed MANIFESTO: Together facing the new totalitarianism, a manifesto against Islamist Totalitarianism that gained wide publicity. The other 11 signatories include Salman Rushdie, Ibn Warraq, Maryam Namazie, Taslima Nasreen, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

She has received several political awards for her work, including the National award of "Laïcité" in 2005, and the "Award of the political book" in 2006.