A French Catholic group is suing dating site Gleeden for promoting extramarital affairs.
The move comes after adverts for Gleeden posted around Paris were taken down, following protestations and a petition from residents.
The adverts featured the Gleeden logo, a woman taking a bite out of an apple, and a caption reading: “Unlike anti-depressant drugs, a lover costs nothing on the state health service.”
The petition generated 23,000 signatures, and after some councils took the adverts down, one Catholic group has decided to go one step further, by suing the dating company.
The Telegraph reports their lawyer, Henri de Beauregard said the site and their adverts acted as an ”encouragement to break a contractual obligation entered into at the time of marriage.”
Jean-Marie Andres, the president of the group taking legal action, Les Associations Familiales Catholiques, said the site “publicly promotes duplicity, lies and violation of the law”.
“The drastic social consequences of infidelity cannot be ignored by our common conscience,” he said.
Although infidelity has not been a crime in France since 1975, the group says the dating site contravenes an article in the Civil Code that promotes “mutual respect, fidelity, help and assistance between spouses”.
A spokesperson for Gleeden, Solene Paillet, dismissed the basis for legal proceedings, saying their adverts had been running for five years, and had been passed by the advertising standards body.
She said: “The campaign carried a very neutral message and was in no way shocking.”