PARIS — France will lift a ban on blood donations by gay and bisexual men starting next year, officials announced Wednesday, joining a growing list of countries that have loosened or scrapped such restrictions, which many see as outdated vestiges of the 1980s AIDS crisis.

“Giving one’s blood is an act of generosity and of civic responsibility that cannot be conditioned by sexual orientation,” the health minister, Marisol Touraine, said in a statement. “While respecting the absolute security of patients, it is a taboo, a discrimination that is being lifted today.”

Ms. Touraine first announced the policy change in an interview with the newspaper Le Monde.

Gay advocacy groups in France welcomed the end of the ban but criticized new provisions that would continue to treat homosexual and heterosexual blood donors differently.

Starting in the spring, men who have not been sexually active with other men in the preceding 12 months will be able to donate blood. Gay men who have had only one partner for the preceding four months, or who have not been sexually active, will be able to donate blood plasma.