Brussels (AFP)

A woman hit by a man because it does not bring him the hamburger asked: an advertisement has caused an uproar in Belgium, consumers and politicians deeming it "nauseating" and "irresponsible" against a background of mobilization against domestic violence.

Some 300 complaints have been identified since Tuesday by the Council of advertising, the disciplinary body of the sector in Belgium, said its director Sandrine Sepul Wednesday morning to AFP.

Posted on Facebook, the incriminated visual, which borrows from comics and American pop art of the 1950s, shows a man in a suit and tie punching a face in the face of a blonde woman, who wavers under the violence of the gesture.

"Serious, a fake Bicky?" Proclaims the man to justify the gesture.

And the advertiser to explain, above the image, that only the good color of box makes sure that it is the "real Bicky", a steak cooked in the beloved frying of Belgian amateurs of junk-food.

Wednesday, all Belgian media echoed the outcry provoked by advertising, quickly removed from Facebook but remained visible in the comments of many Internet users.

"Bicky, burger to vomit," wrote the newspaper Le Soir in a mood post, wondering how, in 2019, creative advertising could judge such a campaign "funny, fun, promising".

"Every ten days, a man kills his wife, or his ex and every day, some are humiliated, rape, beat up", added the newspaper, expressing his "rage".

Nawal Ben Hamou and Christie Morreale, Equal Opportunities Ministers respectively in the Brussels-Capital Region and in Wallonia, have announced that they have seized the disciplinary body of advertising.

The first blasted on his Facebook page a campaign "nauseating and totally irresponsible".

"About one in four women will experience violence in her lifetime, some of them will die, and using violence against women in advertising is irresponsible," Morreale said on Twitter.

According to Ms Sepul, the Belgian Advertising Ethics Panel forwarded the complaints received to the equivalent body of the Netherlands, the Code Commissie. The identified advertiser, Izico, is based in the Netherlands, she explained.

The latter will now have to explain and a sanction could be decided within "a few weeks".

"Even if there has been a withdrawal (of advertising), it is important from a moral and symbolic point of view to rule on things," said Ms. Sepul.

© 2019 AFP