France's clean break with sexy past

France is traditionally associated with the lascivious

By Emma Jane Kirby BBC correspondent in Paris

When France's centre-right government was elected in June this year, President Jacques Chirac promised the French people a return to law and order.

The French Cabinet has already approved a tough new bill which would expand police powers to wage war on crime.

Pornography is a degradation of people, it's a kind of violence, and that we are fighting

Charles de Courson
Right-wing MP

Now the government is turning its attention to sex and pornography.

Supporters of the move say that the French sex industry is in desperate need of censorship, but libertarians argue that this tough new moralistic wave sweeping across the country will change the face of France forever.

Clean break

From the risque paintings of Toulouse-Lautrec to the raunchy songs of Serge Gainsburg, the French have always made an art out of sex.

But today with hardcore porn readily available and enjoyed by millions on mainstream pay TV, the new government is wondering whether it isn't time to make a clean break with France's more liberal past and to introduce a new moral order.

From his Paris office, right-wing MP Charles de Courson is leading the campaign to ban most pornography.

He wants to impose a 90% tax on hardcore videos to discourage the sex industry from making them.

It is not about prudish censorship, he claims, but about protection.

'Degradation'

"We must have liberal freedom in creation, but respect some rules towards violence, because violence is not a good thing for society," Mr de Courson said.

"There is a confusion between the side of sex which is positive - love for instance - and pornography.

The last French election saw big gains for the right

"Pornography is a degradation of people, it's a kind of violence, and that we are fighting."

In 2001 violent crime in France rose by 23%, prompting a public outcry.

The new centre-right government won the election earlier this year, promising the French people that it would restore law and order.

But according to many social commentators and cultural historians like Silvan Balmon, it's naive to link real life attacks and violence to dirty television programmes.

Most violent crimes in France, he argues, are crimes of passion.

"Most of them - the vast majority of them - are actually passionate crimes, so people maybe they kill each other for love, for passionate reasons.

"So are we going to ban love or to ban romantic novels like we are going to ban sex films?"

Cheap sex

The new moralistic wave sweeping France, however, isn't solely driven by right-wing politicians.

France will ever stay, I think, the country of love

Natalie Evicielle
Sex shop owner

Mr Balmon believes that the revolutionary sexual freedom of the 1960s exhausted French people, who have now become disillusioned with the "cheapening" of sex.

"Maybe this is the reason why we have all this reaction - because sex is seen as something sacred.

"So sex scenes that are not sacred, that are sacrilege, are perceived as something offensive more and more.

"Maybe we have turned the page."

'Best lovers'

But in a designer sex shop in Paris, the owner Natalie Evicielle is convinced that her brand of "classy" sex - and France's reputation as a nation of lovers - is here to stay.

"You know an image stays for ever and France has the image of dutiful love and romance. Frenchmen are meant to be the best lovers in the world.

"To touch an image, to touch a reputation, nobody can do that. France will ever stay, I think, the country of love."

But with the government breathing heavily down the necks of those involved in the sex industry, the permissive pleasures of the past may have to be subjugated to a more frugal future which embraces little more than family values.