The 68-year-old Frenchman is facing rape charges after fooling two women into having sex in the dark, thinking they were with a 37-year-old male model.

A man calling himself Anthony Laroche depicted himself on dating websites as a mysterious young man and posted a profile photo showing off a smouldering gaze and designer stubble.

He also proposed a "blind" date in which the two total strangers had sex in the dark on their first encounter at his apartment in Nice.

One alleged victim, known as Sylvie, 40, told police she spotted his profile on dating site Zoosk and made contact via text message.

"He explained he wanted to play a game like in 50 Shades of Grey to make things more exciting," Le Parisien newspaper quotes her as saying.

She went to his apartment and agreed to his instructions that she wear a blindfold and then join him in the bedroom.

After having sex, she turned on the light and found herself in bed with a "man of around 65 with glasses, balding and all wrinkly".

"He didn't correspond at all to the photo. I felt total disgust," she said.

The 68-year-old Frenchman faces rape charges for fooling women into having 50 Shades of Grey-style sex in the dark on first date.

A second alleged victim, known only as Leïla had a similar experience.

Police arrested the 68-year old man, known only as Michel, on March 17, and placed him under formal investigation for "rape by surprise".

He reportedly admitted swiping a photo of a male model after a Google search but insisted he was innocent of rape because both women were consenting.

"If she had asked just once if I was really the man in the photo, I would have told her the truth," he is quoted as saying.

A lawyer for one of the alleged victims said even though there was no violence, the sex still constituted rape because the consent was not "enlightened".

"This man put in place a stratagem that enabled him to have sexual relations that he would never had if he had acted in the open," the lawyer, Mohamed Maktouf, said.

Police have since discovered the man had been in contact with 342 women in France between the ages of 25 and 50 and had "intimate photos" of 200 different women.