Anti-pornography law: "One wonders if it was really intended to protect young people"

Article reserved for subscribers

The Sren law, whose decree requiring age verification of Internet users on pornographic sites has been suspended, was supposed to protect minors. Is it effective? "Not at all," protests Franck Desbordes. Author of a virulent column in the magazine "Strobo," he denounces the fraud.

On June 4, the day PornHub, YouTube, and RedTube blocked access to French internet users, VPN subscription sales exploded. (Jean-Michel Delage/Hans Lucas. AFP)

Every week in "Les 400 Culs" , Agnès Giard, an anthropologist attached to the University of Paris Nanterre and a specialist in Japan, examines contemporary sexual discourses and practices with a skeptical and detached analysis, informed by the latest research in the human and social sciences.

"The Sren law [to secure and regulate the digital space, editor's note] claims to prevent children from watching porn... without succeeding. And for good reason: its real objective is not the protection of minors, but the prohibition of adult content." On the phone, Franck Desbordes barely hides his annoyance. Editor-in-chief of the monthly Strobo Mag, a free magazine distributed in the French network of gay clubs, the 58-year-old Parisian has just signed a damning editorial in the latest issue, just released in print: "Sren, an ineffective law," he headlines, with supporting evidence.

Interviewed by Libération, Franck Desbordes denounced a law that reflects the "puritanism" of public authorities and, above all, their "negligence." "The article summarizes several years of work on the issue," he explains. Former president of the

Pornography Blog The 400 Asses