Court says sex toys are porn
Love shop in centre of Paris to close as lawyer attacks puritanical verdict
A LOVE shop in the centre of Paris is being forced to close as it is too near to a primary school.
Nicolas Busnel, owner of the 1969 - Curiosités Désirables shop in Rue-Saint-Martin (4e), lost a court case after religious groups protested that the shop, which had a window display of sex toys, was less than 200m from the school.
The shop, near the Centre Pompidou, has been open since 2008 but judge Florence Schmidt-Pariset ruled that the sex toys were pornographic and ordered Busnel to pay a symbolic €1 damages to the catholic religious group Cler Amour et Famille.
He had faced up to two years' jail and a €30,000 fine.
No order was made for the shop to be shut, but Busnel's lawyer said after the case in the Paris Correctionnel court that was the "logical consequence" for fear of new complaints.
However, he added that they were going to appeal because the verdict set a legal precedent. It was a "retrograde morality and the most worrying puritanism".
He had said in court that the objects for sale in the shop were on free sale elsewhere in France: "The 3 Suisses catalogue has whole pages given over to them."
Cler Amour et Famille lawyer, Henri de Beauregard, said he was "satisfied the law has been applied".
