French court says it cannot ban orgy video

A French court said yesterday it had no power to ban a British newspaper from posting on its website a video showing world motorsport chief Max Mosley in what the paper described as a Nazi-style orgy with prostitutes.

Mosley had filed legal action in France, which has stricter privacy laws than Britain, to try and prevent the video from being shown on the internet in France. This would have forced the News of the World to pull the video from its site.

The Sunday tabloid published a front-page story last month with photographs it said showed Mosley in a sado-masochistic orgy with prostitutes dressed as concentration camp prisoners.

Mosley, head of the International Automobile Federation, has denied any Nazi connotation. He has resisted calls to resign as head of the FIA.

Though it said it could not block the website, the Paris court ruled that the photographs the News of the World had published in its paper version were a violation of French privacy laws and that the newspaper had to withdraw any copies available in France.