'Sugar daddy' site targeting university students in Paris is removed

The advert for RichMeetsBeautiful@Paris

An advert for a dating site offering to help students in Paris find a "sugar daddy" to fund their studies has been removed by police.

A mobile billboard was advertising the RichMeetBeautiful site in the grounds of Sorbonne University.

It featured a couple cuddling with the message to students - "romance, passion and no student loan, go out with a sugar daddy".

Since then police have seized the billboard.

A tweet from City of Paris official account said it "strongly condemned the shameful advertisement" and would "work with police to make it disappear from our streets".

Here's the tweet in French which says: "Nous condamnons avec fermeté cette publicité honteuse. Nous travaillons avec la @prefpolice pour la faire disparaître de nos rues."

Deputy mayor of Paris, Helene Bidard, said the advert was a form of prostitution.

"As well as the public order problems caused by an advert that can be seen by minors, this site is an offence against women," she said.

She later said an investigation had been opened on the website for pimping and police had seized the truck for displaying without authorisation.

Here's her tweet in French which says: "Une enquête ouverte sur le site pour proxénétisme et la police a fait saisir le camion pr affichage sans autorisation!"

The site's founder, Norwegian Sigurd Vedal, said the site aims to put people in contact with each other, like any other dating site.

He previously denied any similarity to prostitution when he was criticised for advertising in Brussels last month.

"It's a classic misunderstanding. We are like a normal dating site, but financial is part of the checklist," he told a television station in Belgium.

In France, student association FAGE has also lodged a criminal complaint about pimping.

This is a tweet with a link to an online petition to stop the site.

And lots of other people were outraged too.

Here's a tweet from another outraged passer-by.

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