Paris (AFP) - A group of young French media executives was condemned Monday for running a macho "boys' club" that harassed female colleagues online.

Their closed Facebook group "League of LOL" -- made up mostly of men in their thirties -- ridiculed women journalists for years, sometimes using pornographic memes to attack them.

Women seen as feminist were the group's favourite targets.

The founder of the group, journalist Vincent Glad, was suspended Monday by left-wing daily Liberation after an investigation by the newspaper's own fact-checking unit exposed its existence.

The revelations also led to the suspension of the newspaper's online editor Alexandre Hervaud and his opposite number at France's trendiest music and culture magazine, Les Inrockuptibles, David Doucet.

The affair is being dubbed the "French media's #MeToo", with Liberation referring to the group as a "boys' club" which bullied women online and cracked off-colour jokes about rape culture.