I am french and I have been told at hospital very recently that the rules about shaving had changed.
I went three times at a french hospital.
The first time I was still young about 22 age for an hernia and I came without any preparation at home.
After a few time in my personal bedroom in the hospital, a young nurse came with an other nurse middle aged certainly more experienced, and that latter told me that they might prepare me for the surgery operation by shaving my pubic area and upper side of the thighs and lower part of the belly.
I was asked if I preferred to do it myself and they will check after if it is was fine or if I wanted that they did it.
As I was young and not sure to be enough able to do it and since I might be ckecked after anyway, I told them to do it.
It was the young one who was in charge and she was very cautious, it was obvious that she was not already used to do it frequently.
At one time, she asked me to turn around and lift my butts, so that she could shave my anus area, the middle aged nurse told her that it was not really necessary to be so thorough for such an operation and to shave also the anus area, at least it was not required by the doctors, but she added that she found nevertheless that it was not useless and it was rather a good idea, and it was useful for her to have a lot of experiences about shaving that part of the body where it was not easy, it was why she did not stop her, but they needed my agreement ; she added with a smile to me that I had certainly no objection even if it could be a little embarrassing for me as it was usually for all persons, I was a little shocked but I understood her argument and did not object, she granted me to let the nurse do it and added that my hairs would soon come again. She checked all the results of the shaving of the young nurse at the end, it was fine and enough.
The second time was again for an hernia at 45 age or about.
That time the nurse did not ask me if I wanted to do it myself, she gave me a safety razor to do it myself and left the room, I did not like to do it and did not succeed well without cutting myself and anyway when she came back, she checked after and told me that she might end the work, so I would have preferred that she did it immediatelely since it was also embarrassing.
The third time was this year in a medical clinic where I might have a surgery operation for the prostate and the doctor who explained to me how it would be done told me that now they did not shave the patient because they had discovered after studies that there were more risks of infections post surgery with patients shaved than on patients not shaved!
So now they did not shave at all the pattients except if it was absolutely necessary to have an access to the part of the body concerned by the operation. In my case it was not necessary since they used the natural orifices to enter in my body.
I don't know if this new rule is specific to France hospitals but I was surprised, I was expecting too be shaved of course.