Oscar winners cut off their hair in France

Oscar-winning actors Marion Cotillard and Juliette Binoche, as well as other French screen and music stars, filmed themselves chopping off locks of their hair in a video posted Wednesday in support of protesters in Iran.

“For freedom,” Binoche said as she hacked a large handful of hair off the top of her head with a pair of scissors, before brandishing it in front of the camera.

The video, hashtagged HairForFreedom, comes with Iran engulfed by anti-government protests. They were sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after her arrest for allegedly violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code.

Some of the Iranian demonstrators have publicly hacked off locks of hair at the protests, and the gesture has spread.

Images of women elsewhere cutting their hair to show solidarity with Iranian women have gone viral — from Turkish singer Melek Mosso on stage last week, to women in Lebanon and Syria, to Swedish lawmaker Abir Al-Sahlani in the halls of the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday. A museum in Rome is collecting locks of hair to present to the Iranian Embassy.