A French lawmaker from President Nicolas Sarkozy's UMP party is raising demands to legalise brothels, more than 60 years after Paris banned them.

Chantal Brunel, MP for the western Paris suburbs and the head of the national watchdog on sexual equality, believes crime rates would dip and sex workers would benefit from "sexual services centres".

"The idea is not to go back to the situation before 1946. I propose that we should consider the creation of places where the purchase of sexual services would be possible with medical, legal and financial protection," Times Online quoted Brunel, as telling Le Parisien.

She added: "It is true that few women prostitute themselves willingly.

"But we should not be blind. Prostitution has always existed and will always do so."

Brunel's campaign is spelt out in a book to be published this month.

Fifty-nine percent of the French public supports the reopening of regulated brothels that were shut down in 1946, a national survey by the CSA agency revealed. Seventy percent of men and 49 percent of women supported the scheme. The poll for Le Parisien newspaper saw only 13 percent of women opposing the proposal, with 38 percent being unsure. (ANI)