PARIS (AFP) -- Amazon France has withdrawn advertisements for child-like sex dolls from its website after an online outcry, the French government said Monday.

The French AIVI anti-paedophilia movement alerted authorities on Twitter over the weekend, prompting widespread outrage on social media.

Screengrabs of some of the dolls, shared in an online campaign accusing Amazon of facilitating paedophilia, show some of the dolls on offer: likenesses  of pre-pubescent girls with descriptions such as "realistic", "virgin" and "flat-chested" for "maximum pleasure."

The links reported by AIVI no longer worked on Monday.

"Following the alerts of associations, which I thank, I asked (Amazon France) to stop the marketing on their platform of sex dolls in the likeness of children," Adrien Taquet, France's junior minister in charge of child protection, tweeted on Monday.

The company reacted "immediately", he said, and committed itself to "remain vigilant".

"Banishing child crime from our society is everyone's responsibility," added Taquet.

In a statement to AFP, Amazon affirmed that "the protection of children and adolescents is a priority for us.

"All vendor partners are required to follow our sales policies and any infringement results in the application of appropriate measures, including the potential deletion of the vendor's account".

AIVI pointed out this was not the first time that child sex dolls had been found on Amazon, referring to a case in Britain in 2018. (AFP)