Vegetarian sausages, vegan bacon, soya steaks and other vegetable-based meat substitutes will be no more in France after lawmakers agreed on Thursday to ban them for misleading consumers.

Under the measure proposed by MP and farmer Jean-Baptiste Moreau, vegetarian food producers will no longer have the right to use "steak", "fillet", "bacon", "sausage" or any other meat reated term to describe products that are not partly or wholly composed of meat.

The regulation, which was tabled in the form of an amendment to an agriculture bill, will also apply to vegetarian or vegan products marketed as dairy alternatives.

Refusals to comply with the regulation will lead to fines of up to 300,000 euros ($370,000).

Mr Moreau has argued that current labelling cause confusion among consumers, who may believe they are eating pure, high-quality meat instead of a meat-and-soy combination, or a wholly vegetarian product.