Paris, Dec. 22 (Reuters): France officially banned sexist and anti-gay speech today with a new law against discrimination that media watchdogs and the Roman Catholic Church have criticised as a possible curb on free expression.

The conservative majority in the Senate upper house approved a bill previously passed in the National Assembly to establish an authority to help victims of bias.

Under the new law, anyone found provoking hatred or violence of a person on the basis of sex or sexual orientation would risk one year in jail and a fine of 45,000 euro ($60,000).

?A decisive step has been taken,? said the gay rights association Inter-LGBT.

The government drafted the law after assailants torched a young gay man with petrol, leaving him severely burned, in an attack that deeply shocked the country.