France

France 🇫🇷 is a European country which is a secular state, but primarily worships Christianity. It is a member of the European Union.

General censorship

Freedom of press is guaranteed by the French Constitution but several effective cases of censorship against newspapers (Le Canard enchaîné, Charlie Hebdo and Hara-Kiri newspapers, etc.), films, or radio-shows, have been registered in the history of the Fifth Republic, founded in 1958. According to Human Rights Watch, 6 percent of French people investigated for "apology for terrorism" are under the age of 14.

• France has been known to criminalize material advancing extreme political positions. Between 1892 and 1994, it was unlawful to promote or advocate anarchy or overthrow of the government. Also in 1990, the government enacted the Gayssot Act, which criminalized material that contained historical revisionism, such Holocaust denial, as well racist and religious hate speech.
• There are also other laws which prohibit homophobic hate speech and a 1970 law prohibits the advocacy of illegal drugs, which were criticized by some groups, either from the left (especially concerning the 1970 law on drugs) or from the far right (in particular concerning the 1990 Gayssot Act or the laws prohibiting homophobic attacks). Others express the need for minorities to be protected from hate speech which may lead, according to them, to heinous acts and hate crimes, while still others claim that one cannot tolerate free speech concerning drugs as it is a matter of public health and moral order.
• The 2005 vote of the law on colonialism voted by the UMP conservative parliamentary majority lifted a debate, especially among historians, concerning the legitimacy and relevancy of such "memory laws." Although a fair amount of historians are opposed to such laws, few advocate their repeal because they think that repealing democratically agreed upon laws would be a greater evil.
• Critics, in particular, but not only, from the left wing, have criticized economic censorship, more specifically through concentration of media ownership (Bouygues' influence, for instance, on TF1), or that Dassault or Lagardère, both military firms, control several newspapers in France, such as Le Figaro (owned by Dassault).
• From 1920 to 1991, any advocacy of birth control was banned in France, even though birth control itself was allowed on 1967. This ban was lifted because of the AIDS crisis and the need to communicate about condoms.

• In a twist of, while France has some media watchdogs, some of them actually complain because they believe that French TV and movies are not bold enough. This was because there used to be a time when French films were infamous for featuring lots more violence and sex (they never had to operate under the Hays Code). Now that Hollywood can to do the same thing, said approach is not profitable anymore and most French filmmakers would prefer to create slice of life films, comedy films and European literature adaptations rather than excessively using sex and violence to attract audiences that Hollywood does not attract. If anything this proves that if new media turns out to be tamer and lighter than older media it will still come under fire by that old media.
• Familles de France (Families of France), the national federation of local and regional family assocaitions founded on 1947 and has a religious and conservative slant. Said federation is known for regularly bashing material it deems as obscene.

Book censorship

• Les Moeurs (The Manners) - this book written by François-Vincent Toussaint was officially banned in France in 1748.
• Le Pays et le gouvernement -this 1840 book by Lammenais was censored, leading to the author's imprisonment for a year.
• Madame Bovary - After appearing as a successful serial in the Revue de Paris,this novel written by Gustave Flaubert went on trial in France on January 30, 1857, for "offenses against public morals", but did not succeed in court.
• Lolita - this novel written by Vladimir Nabokov was banned by French officials, who considered it "obscene".
• La Question - this book by Henri Alleg was censored in 1958 after selling 60,000 copies in two weeks due to its description of the methods of torture used by French paratroopers during the Algerian War from the point of view of a victim.
• The Wretched of the Earth - this book by the black French political philosopher Frantz Fanon with a preface by Jean-Paul Sartre, which analysed dehumanizing effects of colonization upon the individual and the nation as well discussing the social, cultural, and political implications of establishing a social movement for decolonizing a person and of a people, was censored.
• Cruel hand on Cameroon, autopsy of a decolonization - this book by Cameroonian writer Mongo Beti was censored in 1972 by the Ministry of the Interior Raymond Marcellin on the request, brought forward by Jacques Foccart, of the Cameroon government, represented in Paris by the ambassador Ferdinand Oyono.
• Louis-Ferdinand Céline's books , Bagatelles pour une massacre (Trifles for a Massacre), L'école des cadavres (The School of Corpses) and Les beaux draps (A Fine Mess) were all censored due to the Céline being an anti-Semite. The latter book was banned in 1941 in the German-occupied France for its criticism of the French Armed Forces.
• Tintin mon copain - this book written by the Belgian politican and Nazi collaborator Léon Dégrelle (who was leader of the Rexist Party), was censored due to author rights violation, as the author used Hergé's (the creator of Tintin) characters and fame.
• Suicide mode d'emploi - this book, written by Claude Guillon, reviewing recipes for committing suicide, was the cause of a scandal in France in the 1980s, resulting in the enactment of a law prohibiting provocation to commit suicide and propaganda or advertisement of products, objects, or methods for committing suicide. Subsequent reprints were thus illegal. The book was cited by name in the debates of the French National Assembly when examining the bill.
• The manga Angel by U-jin, published in France starting in 1995, suffered a process of interdiction which prevented bookshops from displaying it on shelves.
  • From 1939 to 2004, French government could ban any printed document "of foreign provenance" if it was deemed a threat to public order. Most of these were porn, but some interesting things also found themselves banned:
    • Documents from Soviet Union or anti-colonial movements were sometimes banned in The '50s and The '60s.
    • In 1976 French government banned Jean-Paul Alata's Prison d'Afrique, where he told how he and his cellmates were tortured in Boiro Camp, using this law to protect their relations with the government of Guinea to be able to invest in their Bauxite mines. Alata was a French national but was stripped of his citizenship in 1962; when his Guinean citizenship was also stripped in 1970 (after a kangaroo court sentenced him to life for "treason"); although the work was written and printed in France, the French government still considered him "foreign" because he was technically stateless.
    • The Gayssot Act was invoked in 1999 to ban The Turner Diaries.
  • In occupied France during World War II, any book from an author whose name was on the Otto or Bernhardt lists (essentially including Jews, anti-Germans, Marxists, Brits, and Americans) was banned from any bookshops.
  • Since the Youth Publications Act 1949 (Loi du 16 juillet 1949 sur les publications destinées à la jeunesse), France has an official committee tasked with regulating both French and foreign publications in order to protect morality of youth.
    • Two Buck Danny issues were banned since they took place during the The Korean War. It caused future issues from no using real countries.
    • "The Time Trap" from Blake and Mortimer has been banned.
    • "Billy the Kid" from Lucky Luke was banned because Billy was shown sucking a gun.
    • Alix's "La Griffe noire" and "Les Légions perdues" were seen as references to the Algerian War.
    • Nowadays, they only restrict porn (the last bans occuring on 2011), but as late as 2004, Riad Sattouf had to alter "Ma circoncision. (My circumcision)"

Television censorship

Ratings

The Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel (CSA, Superior Audiovisual Council) leaves to TV channels to choose the rating of a show, but can impose penalties if the rating is too low. During the 1950s-70s, governmental control over radio and television was pervasive. Today, the CSA only oversees the observance of French law by the media, such as the 1990 Gayssot Act and time period allocated to each political party during pre-electoral periods.

There are five ratings for television shows:

• Tous publics (universal/U): suitable for all audiences
• Déconseillé aux moins de 10 ans (-10): Not recommended for anyone under 10s (excluded from shows for children)
• Déconseillé aux moins de 12 ans (-12): Not recommended for anyone under 12s (broadcast mostly after 10:00pm but occasionally after 8:30pm)
• Déconseillé aux moins de 16 ans (-16): Not recommended for anyone under 16s (broadcast after 10:30pm)
• Interdit aux moins de 18 ans (-18): Forbidden to anyone under 18s (broadcast between 0:00am and 5:00am)

Instances of TV censorship

• The anime Kinnikuman was banned in France due to the presence of Brocken.Jr, a heroic swastika-bearing character (despite said character not supporting Nazi beliefs). The anime saw a limited release, but only 49 out of the 137 original episodes were shown on television.
• Dear Brother was pulled from broadcast after episode 7 due to featuring "themes not suitable to the young public" (psychological violence, sexual ambiguity and suicide attempts).
• Chojin Sentai Jetman did not had the episodes 17, 18, 19, 27, 29, 30, 36 and 39 onwards dubbed and aired due to these episodes featuring blood and graphic violence.
• Hokuto no Ken was taken off air from TF1 after episode 84 (and episode 35 not dubbed due to a technical problem), due to overreacting from "moral guardians" such as parents' groups and and politicians, with the most notable being the left-leaning politician Ségolène Royal (who is infamously critical of Japanese animation in a preachy way, decrying it as "too much violent" and of being of "low-quality", thinking that "it makes children stupid"), resulting in many episodes being censored, with dialogues being with the lines being comically ad-libbed (sometimes with puns, such as the ones involving "Hokuto" and "Nanto" names, as well with Kenshiro saying "Tu ne sais pas encore, mais tu est dejà mort" ("You don't know yet, but you're already dead"), sometimes followed by a countdown before his finisher's irreversible and lethal effects materialize) and the dialog was toned down. However, the DVD editions and cable TV runs on the AB Productions-owned Mangas channel, had the episodes shown uncut.
• Dragon Ball Z: Fusion Reborn - in this anime movie, The Dictator was removed from the French dub due to the antagonists being a reference to the Nazis and to avoid insulting Holocaust survivors after World War II. All swastikas are also replaced with red X's. Additionally, all "Third Reich" references are removed.

• A 2001 documentary about mothers was banned when one of the mothers became a suspect in the death of her infant child; it remained banned during the trial to prevent it from influencing the proceedings and was lifted when they ended — ten years later.
• In 2016, a television ad which advocated that babies with Down Syndrome should not be aborted solely because of their syndrome ran. It was ruled anti-abortion speech and removed.

Rating of films can vary between the theatrical release and television broadcast. The CSA is quite lenient about sex and offensive language compared to the United States and the United Kingdom

Movie censorship

Ratings

All films intended for theatrical release have to be granted a visa by the Ministry of Culture, upon the recommendation of Commission for film classification (Commission de classification cinématographique), which can give a film one of five ratings:

• Tous publics (universal/U): suitable for all audiences
• Avertissement (!): some scenes may disturb young viewers. Can be used in conjunction with any rating as a warning.
• Interdit aux moins de 12 ans (-12): Forbidden for under 12s
• Interdit aux moins de 16 ans (-16): Forbidden for under 16s
• Interdit aux moins de 18 ans (-18): Forbidden for under 18s, not pornographic. Usually used for movies containing unsimulated sex or extreme violence/cruelty. The -18 rating was introduced once again in 2000.
• Interdit aux moins de 18 ans classé X (-18 or X): Forbidden for under 18s and pornographic. This is not a rating per se and it is equivalent to the American "unrated" rank as such films are not played in movie cinemas.

Cinemas are bound by law to prevent underage audiences from viewing films and may be charged a fine in failure to do so.

The Commission cannot make cuts to a film, but it can ban it, although this latter power is rarely used. In practice, this means that most films in France are categorized rather than censored.

Although there aren't any written guidelines as to what content should receive which rating and ratings are given on a case by case basis, the commissioners typically cite violent, sexual and drug related content (especially if it is deemed to be graphic or gratuitous) as reasons for higher ratings. On the other hand, little attention is paid to strong language. However sexual content is much less likely to produce a high rating than in many other countries, including the United States.

Instances of movie censorship

• For three decades, no black and white film could be colorized in France, and no existing colorized version could be distributed there, without permission of the copyright holders.
• La Garçonne (1923) - this film adaptation of Victor Margueritte's novel The Bachelor Girl, starring France Dehlia as the female lead role was censored due to "indecent touching" and "lustful dances". On 11 January 1941, the Vichy regime banned the film from being shown.
• Battleship Potemkin - this film was banned out of fears that it could inspire revolution
• L'Age d'Or - this surrealist film directed by Luis Bunuel was banned in Paris by the police prefect "in the name of public order".
• Zero for Conduct - banned due to a plot where pupils take over a repressive school, for this same reason, the ban remained in effect when the Nazis occupied France.
• Le Corbeau was banned from 1945 until 1947 due to it being produced under the Nazi regime with financial support, as well as being seen as a negative portrayal of French people and accused of harboring sympathies for the Vichy regime. However, two years later, the ban was lifted again.
• Before the Deluge - this film was banned due to its controversial criminal content
• Bel Ami - Initially banned in 1955, after two years, it was unbanned and released in a censored version.
• Le Rendez-vous des quais - this drama film about the 1950-1953 Marseille dockers' strike was banned in 1955 due to its depiction of dockers who refused to dispatch military supplies to the Indochina War. The ban was rescinded in 1990.
• Afrique 50 - this film was banned in 1950 for its criticism of the French colonial rule and the director René Vautier was condemned to one year in prison. In 1990, the film was unbanned.
• Statues Also Die - this essay film was banned in 1953 because it suggested that Western civilization was responsible for the decline of African art. The film was seen at the Cannes Film Festival in 1953, but later banned by the French censors.
• Paths of Glory (1957) by Stanley Kubrick was banned in France until the death of President Charles de Gaulle in 1970 due to its critical depiction of the French Army during World War I.
• Le Petit Soldat was banned in France on political grounds, in 1963, the ban was lifted with re-editing
• Thou Shalt Not Kill (Tu ne tueras point) (1961) - this film was banned for depicting a soldier during World War II with conscientious objections.
• The Battle of Algiers (1966) was banned in France until 1971 for its criticism of France's human rights violations during the Algerian War of Independence.
• Det kære legetøj (Danish Blue) - this Danish feature film which advocating the legalization of pornography was banned in France for advocating pornography. In 1971, the film was unbanned.
• The Texas Chain Saw Massacre - this horror film was banned for its violent and sadistic content between 1974 and 1977.
• Camp de Thiaroye - This Senegalese war drama film was banned for criticizing the colonial system.
• Du – Zwischenzeichen der Sexualität (You – Subtle Signals in Sexuality) - this 1968 documentary by Gerhard Zenkel starring Karin Schubert, was censored in France.
• L'Essayeuse - this 1976 erotic film was seized and had its original negative burnt, after it was denounced on 15 October 1976 by two major family associations (for its apology of vice) and condemned to be burnt on the following day. According to the "specialists" at the time, this film did not present more obscenity and bad taste than the films of the same kind. But for the plaintiffs, it was a question of making an example, making a martyr of it.
• Baise-moi, an extremely violent rape and revenge film, was the first film in three decades to be banned in France. It was eventually reclassified as X (generally a rating for porn), then 18 (which has this film to thank for its reintroduction as an official classification).
• The Wall (2011)- his documenntary about autism and psychoanalysis was censored after a court case due to three psychoanalysts interviewed in the film (Eric Laurent, Esthela Solano, and Alexandre Stevens) sued the filmmaker Sophie Robert , expressing the view that they hold intellectual property rights to the footage filmed by Ms Robert, editing it without their consent and thus distorting their comments.
• Due to a copyright dispute with the estate of composer Georges Bizet, Oscar Hammerstein's Carmen Jones wasn't released in France until 1981.
• The film Night and Fog, about Nazi concentration camps, was banned from competition in the 1957 Cannes Film Festival on the demand of the West German ambassador, who feared the public might believe All Germans Are Nazis.
• Bloody Mama was banned in France at one point due to the high amount of violence.
• Antichrist - this film was banned on 3 February 2016 due to sexual and violent content, despite being allowed on its initial release in 2009. The ban was a result of Promouvoir, a Catholic traditionalist pressure group, who wanted the 16 rating to be reclassified in order to prevent minors from seeing it. A French court ruled in their favour. As a new certificate is being decided, the film is banned from all cinemas, TV broadcast and video release.

Video game censorship

On the last days of May 2022, the use of video gaming Anglicisms was outlawed by the French government, and they have to be substituted with their direct translations in French. This move came due to Big Tech and America's increased influce in the video game industry.

Affected terms

Instead of...	...they should use
cloud gaming	jeu vidéo en nuage
downloadable content, downloaded content (DLC)	contenu téléchargeable additionnel (CTA), extension téléchargeable
early access, early pass	accès anticipé
esports, pro gaming	jeu vidéo de compétition
free-to-play (F2P)	jeu vidéo en accès gratuit
game as a service (GaaS)	jeu vidéo à la demande
hand-tracking	suivi des mains
in-game advertising (IGA)	publicité intrajeu, publicité dans le jeu
matchmaking	appariement de joueurs
pay to win	payer pour gagner
progamer, pro-gamer	joueur professionnel/joueuse professionnelle
progaming, esport	jeu vidéo de compétition
retro gaming	rétrojeu (vidéo)
rigging	squelettage
season pass	passe saisonnier
skill game	jeu (vidéo) d'habileté
skin betting/gambling	bourse d'objets virtuels
social game	jeu social (en ligne)
streamer	joueur(-animateur)/joueuse(-animatrice) en direct

• Second Life - while this game was not banned in France, Familles de France sued this game, alongside its net providers, for promoting gambling, paraphilias, pornography as well for having online sex shops.

Other censorship

In 1994 the Toubon law was enacted to affirm the cultural goal of "reaffirming the position of the French language", requiring "the compulsory use of the French language in all [public] written, ...radio and television advertising..." As a direct consequence, advertising industry workers in France expressed "frustration with regards to what many of them perceive as linguistic censorship." Computer software developed outside France has to translate its user interface and instruction manuals into French to be legally used by companies in France, due to the provision of the said law applying to all workplaces that "any document that contains obligations for the employee or provisions whose knowledge is necessary for the performance of one's work must be written in French." Also under this law, French language is required in all audiovisual programs, with exceptions for musical works and 'original version' films. Under a related law for television, a minimum of 60% films and television series must be produced in European countries and 40% in Francophone countries, and these minimums must be met during evening prime-time as well as daily overall time. The latter law is not linguistic censorship because it applies to television programs that are dubbed into French; rather it is a restriction of foreign-produced cultural content. In another law involving censorship of both linguistic and foreign-produced content, songs in the French language on radio are protected by a minimum quota system.

External links

• Censorship in France at Wikipedia