French president Emmanuel Macron called on Sunday for football matches to be stopped in the event of racist or homophobic abuse from the crowd.

He also said women footballers pay should be more in line with that of men.

“We cannot become accustomed to homophobia and racism on the pretext that we are in a football stadium. There is no sport whose DNA, whose roots, whose mentality is hate speech,” said Macron.

He was speaking to French television at the Lyon stadium just before the kick off of the women's World Cup final.

“We must say that it is a culture of hate,” Macron added. “We fight against homophobia and racism throughout society. Should we accept it in our stadiums? Of course not.”