Philosopher and teacher Vincent Cespedes, who has written several books about the impact of advertising on young people, said an average Parisian is exposed to 2,500 adverts a day, and that this feeds greed, alienation and depression.
He says that in France, unlike in other European countries such as Britain, there is no strict code for advertisers, only a watchdog that rarely intervenes.
In France, sex is used to sell almost anything from holidays to handbags, prompting campaigns by feminist groups which write graffiti over naked breasts and buttocks emblazoned onto metro walls and street-side billboards across the capital.
"Advertising, particularly in France, totally warps the image young people have of women," said Cespedes. "One of my pupils said the other day he reckoned white women were all whores because they'd sleep with you for a yogurt."
Ahmed Meguini, another of the 62 defendants, says the movement is a sign that French youth has recovered its zest for politics, rekindling memories of student riots in 1968 and more recently of protests over anti-immigrant leader Jean-Marie Le Pen's success in finishing second in the 2002 presidential election.
"We got a wave of interest after [the elections] then everyone said the protest movement in France had died," said Meguini, 27. "This just goes to show it's alive and kicking ... And we are not going to be scared off by a court case."
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