France will allow under-18s to watch films featuring REAL SEX as it loosens movie classification laws

• Culture minister Audrey Azoulay has decided to relax film classification system
• The French politician will overturn 2003 decree by early February
• The change in law will lift an automatic ban on under-18s watching real sex
• The 18 certificate will now only be automatically applied to films that include sex or violence that could 'seriously hurt the sensitivity of minors', the ministry said

Culture minister Audrey Azoulay, pictured at an opera in Paris, is set to make changes to France's film laws

Young people in France will soon be allowed to watch real sex scenes at the cinema, as the government relaxes its film classification laws.

Culture minister Audrey Azoulay is set to announce that under-18s will no longer be automatically blocked from seeing a film that contains non-simulated sex, BFM TV reports.

The 18 certificate will now only be automatically applied to films that include sex or violence that could 'seriously hurt the sensitivity of minors', the ministry of culture said.

It's believed Ms Azoulay will bring in the change, which overturns a decree from 2003, by early February before she leaves office.

France's cinema classification board was last summer forced to slap an over 18 rating on the 2015 film 'Love' after a lawsuit from a far-right group, which complained about its 3D-animated non-simulated sex scenes.

The film, directed by the Franco-Argentinian Gaspar Noé, shows graphic sex — in myriad positions and permutations, in twosomes, threesomes and groups.

The explicit depiction of turbulent youthful relationships was first aired at Cannes Film Festival and was described as 'full frontal, in-your-face filmmaking'.

The director said he wanted to smash the convention that keeps graphic eroticism out of mainstream cinema.

'I was making a film about love,' Noe told reporters in Cannes in 2015. 'It wasn't a film about Swiss banks or Scientology.'

'What everyone has in common is their love of making love,' he said.

France's cinema classification board was last summer forced to slap an over 18 rating on the 2015 film 'Love' after a lawsuit from a far-right group. The director of 'Love' Gaspar Noé is pictured (left) alongside a scene from the explicit film (right)

Director Gaspar Noe is pictured with actors Klara Kirstin, Karl Glusman and Aomi Muyock during the 'Love' photocall at the 68th Cannes Film Festival in 2015

The news that France will allow under-18s to watch real sex scenes comes after the CNC, France's film certification board, in December came under fire after it rated an animated film that features a three minute long mass orgy scene suitable for children.

Sausage Party, an adult themed comedy written and directed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, was rated as 'R' in the US and a '15' in the UK however the CNC gave the movie a '12' enabling children to watch it.

The film, which is set in an American supermarket and follows the lives of horny and often blasphemous foodstuffs, features a sexually explicit scene involving most of the characters having sex with multiple partners.

Christian and conservative organisations lashed out at the CNC for allowing children as young as 12 to watch the film in cinemas.

Jean-Frédéric Poisson, president of France's Christian Democratic party said: 'An orgy scene for 12-year-olds! Everything remains to be done to combat early exposure to pornography.'