SUSAN BELL IN PARIS


FRANCE’S conservative government announced yesterday that it is to slap a 93 per cent tax on profits from sexually explicit films as part of an anti-pornography drive.

The government’s decision came as France is in the throws of a heated debate over censorship and freedom of speech which has divided the cabinet and provoked intense media coverage in a country long known for its sexual openness and liberal mores.

"Our aim is to make this sector financially unattractive," the right-wing deputy Charles de Courson told Le Figaro yesterday after the national assembly agreed his initiative would be applied from 1 January next year.

Mr Courson said the ruling would raise to 60 per cent from 33 per cent a special tax already levied on profits from the production, distribution or showing of any French-made film deemed pornographic or an incitement to violence.

Once added to the standard 33 per cent tax on all corporate profits, French porn film-makers will be left with a mere 7 per cent of their profits net of tax.

"We want to destroy their profitability to discourage further investments," Mr Courson said.

Televised pornography was launched in France in 1984, when the pioneering broadcaster Canal Plus introduced X-rated films on the first Saturday of each month to help build its image as a brash and racy new alternative to France’s stuffy existing channels.

Since then, few people have complained about "le porno du Samedi soir", as the French cheerfully call it. But over the last year, fears have grown that the increasing amount of TV porn is threatening the moral and mental well-being of young people.

Crime, particularly increasing youth crime, was a dominant topic of presidential and parliamentary elections last spring. Fuelling public concerns are recent French media reports of a growing number of sex crimes among youths, especially gang rapes by teenage boys. Psychologists say the boys act out on teenage girls the sex abuse scenes they see in pornographic films.

Leading the war on porn is the country’s audiovisual watchdog, the Conseil Superieur de l’Audiovisuel (CSA). Headed by the right-winger Dominique Baudis, it has called for the government to ban the X-rated films that have been shown on late-night subscription television channels for years. Mr Baudis says French television now shows almost 1,000 pornographic films a month. According to a CSA poll taken last month, Mr Baudis has widespread public support: two-thirds of those polled said they want pornography banned from broadcast and cable TV channels.

On Thursday, a petition signed by 100 deputies from President Jacques Chirac’s conservative UMP party was presented to the national assembly. However, such a ban is opposed by others in the conservative ranks - including the culture minister, Jacques Allaigon - who say it amounts to censorship. It is also criticised by human rights groups and such bastions of France’s liberal tradition as Le Monde, who say the conservative government is on a repressive moral crusade.

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(shaking head)
I always knew that the French are strange people. Here we can see another example.

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If every material thing is gone, my smile and my tears stay left.