Children will be allowed to see explicit sex scenes in French cinemas as long as they are “aesthetically” filmed.
The government’s plan to re-assert the nation’s liberal values comes after court rulings banned under 18s from films with unsimulated sex or extreme violence. Critics said the decisions were an affront to artistic freedom and a sign that France was being contaminated by Anglo-Saxon prudery.
Audrey Azoulay, the culture minister, is now promising a law change to allow children over 12 to see the sort of films that get an 18 certificate in the UK.
The issue came to prominence over Blue is the Warmest Colour, a lesbian love story that won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2013. In Britain it got an 18 certificate because of its “strong sex and very strong language”. France’s culture ministry gave it a 12 certificate, a decision successfully challenged by the Catholic group Promouvoir, which took it off screens. A court also quashed a decision to give a 12 certificate to Nymphomaniac, directed by Lars Von Trier.
However, when Promouvoir challenged the ministry’s decision that Fifty Shades of Grey was an “educational film” worthy of a 12 certificate, the court threw out the case.