Named only as “Thierry” in the French media, the man has launched a legal bid after his passport photo was rejected by French authorities.

In a letter sent to AFP, he asked: “Is it responsible, in a depressed France, for the authorities to accuse people if they smile?”

The law states that people must keep a “neutral expression”.

However, the man’s lawyer, Romain Boulet, claims the French courts were wrong to ban smiling in passport photos on this basis, and has invoked the Mona Lisa in his arguments in the press.

Boulet said people have failed to agree for over 500 years on whether the famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci portrays a smile or not.

He added: “That so many leading experts have failed to agree on this, shows that it is not the authorities to determine whether a smile is neutral or not.”