Anyone ever heard of harassment laws?

I’m struggling with French men, culturally, so I guess it’s time to explore that. I didn’t want to write about this necessarily because it’s kind of weird, but it kind-of came to a point 2 nights ago, so I guess it’s time.
I don’t understand the part of French culture that allows men to openly speak to women in the streets the way that they do. We were told that European men in general are more forceful in their advances, and that we shouldn’t be surprised to get a few comments yelled at us or to be approached in the street. I have been yelled at from across the street, I have had a car stop to tell me I was “trop belle” (too beautiful), I have had kisses blown at me, I have had men ask me for information, as in (in my eyes) directions or something, then just turn it into saying “how is it that you’re so pretty”, and now, as of 2 days ago, I have been actually physically touched. I was walking home from a Taize church service on Monday night, and I was about 5 minutes away from my house, walking up the hill. 4 guys (probably a little drunk) came out of a bar on my street and starting walking directly towards me coming from the opposite direction. One of them broke away from the others and came towards me, rather quickly. I had seen them from a few seconds away, so I was trying to move to the other side of the sidewalk to avoid them, but he followed me and said, in English, “I love you”, which caught me off guard because it made me wonder if he knew that I was American, and how he knew that. Then he started speaking in French, calling me “ma cherie” (my darling) and all of his friends start saying it too. I was trying to just keep walking, but he came towards me as he was saying all of this and he grabbed me by my elbow, not super gently. I obviously panicked, but I just shook him off and kept walking and didn’t say anything. Looking back, I probably could’ve yelled at him in French or hit him or whipped out my mace or whatever, but my goal was just to get back to my house and get away from them as quickly as possible. I guess in my fight or flight instinct, I was definitely in flight mode. Anyways I walked the rest of the way home as quickly as possible and as soon as I got into the house I lost it. My host mom was like “what’s wrong?” and I was trying to explain to her in French as I’m freaking out. She was ready to go, asking if they were down by our house or if the bar was still open and all this stuff, haha. She was gonna go kick some ass, I think. Anyways, it shook me up a little bit because, as I tried to explain to my host mom, in the United States, I’m not used to guys coming up to me and openly talking to me or trying to get my number or stuff like that. Maybe I haven’t spent enough time in New York or in a big city, but it seems much more forceful here. I’m also culturally trained that if a guy advances like that, there’s kidnapping or rape in the back of my mind, especially since he grabbed my arm.
So I understand the basic cultural principle behind the whole thing, or I understand it as explained by the director of my program during the first week of orientation, which may or may not be accurate. In the United States, we see our bodies as solely ours, and we value independence, so we wear whatever we want on our bodies, but our space remains our own. In the United States, you get dressed in the morning for you, so if you want to get dressed up and look nice, or if you want to wear a dress or a skirt, you are wearing it for you. In France, according to Madame Sellé, when you get dressed in the morning, you get dressed for everyone else. If you want to look nice and wear nice clothes, you want to impress others, and you are wearing the clothes for others, not for you. As such, your body is not just your own, so if someone notices that you have a nice body or that you’re wearing nice clothes, they are culturally allowed to make a comment about it or try to talk to you.
I understand all of this. I’m not sure if I explained it well enough, but in my head it makes sense. My problem is that I work very hard to make sure that the clothes that I wear are very modest, but over here, with the attention I get, I feel like I must be being immodest or acting in a way that attracts attention. My whole goal in preparing for France in terms of my wardrobe was to blend in and to be conservative in my dress so as not to attract attention. As such, each time I draw attention, I worry about whether the shirt I’m wearing was too tight and that was why these guys said something to me, or whether I look like a foreigner, or whether I accidentally smiled at this guy or whatever. I’m just sick of the attention, and I feel like that sounds snotty, but it’s the truth over here.
On a lighter note, and to update on what I’ve been doing, I went to a Taize service on Monday night as well, which was really really cool. I felt so privileged to go to a real, authentic, French Taize service, since, in case you don’t know, Taize, which is a type of worship service, was started in France. We have Taize services at Muhlenberg once a week, so it was wicked cool to experience a French service, which was more similar than I expected it to be. Peter did a great job applying his knowledge of Taize to our services at Muhlenberg. I think First Lutheran should give it a try (wink wink Dad, or someone else from church reading this). So we sang songs in French, English, Italian, Latin, and Spanish, so I felt more comfortable as a foreigner, haha. There was a Scripture reading, and a time of silence, and a time of prayer. It was very nice, with all the candles and the harmonies. They used a guitar and a flute together, so it was beautiful music.
Other than that, I’ve just been going to class and trying to keep up with the sudden surge of homework. I think this is the push before mid-terms. Maybe the teachers just remembered we have tests in 2 weeks? Who knows, but I think it’s also because I have a presentation on the Crusades next week, and I’m trying to get everything done before Dave comes on Sunday!