Reminding young people that EU membership makes foreign pornography easier to access is a useful way to promote the bloc, a conservative French MEP told a newspaper on Tuesday.

When asked how he planned to convince young people to vote in the upcoming EU Parliament elections in May, Joseph Daul, the leader of the European People’s Party (EPP), said that freer movement across borders was one of his most convincing arguments, The Local reported.

The 67-year-old, who grew up near the German border, told Les Dernieres Nouvelles d'Alsace newspaper: “I tell them that at their age, when I was 18, when I wanted to go to Kehl (across the border in Germany) to see porno movies that were banned in France, you had to wait two-and-a-half hours to get through customs.

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"You'd get to the cinema and the film was already finished," he "And one out of every couple of times I'd realise I'd forgotten to bring deutschmarks!

"When you explain it that way to youngsters they understand straight away what Europe means," he added.