PARIS, March 13 (Reuters) - A French court on Wednesday found temporary staffing firm Adecco guilty of racial profiling and discrimination between 1997 and 2001 at its agency in the Montparnasse district of Paris.

The French-Swiss company and two former agency managers were found guilty by the court of allocating a "PR4" category code to more than 500 workers of colour in response to what the judge called the "discriminatory practices" of Adecco clients.

A spokesperson for Adecco told Reuters in response to the ruling that the company has put in place anti-discrimination policies over the last few years and "will do everything to make sure that such a situation doesn't happen again".

The Paris court fined Adecco 50,000 euros ($54,710) while the former agency managers, Olivier Poulin and Mathieu Charbon, were each fined 10,000 euros, of which 7,000 euros was suspended indefinitely.

Adecco, Poulin and Charbon all denied the allegations. Their lawyers had told the court that the "PR" category codes used related to the "presentation" and skills of the candidates.

Reuters was not immediately able to contact Poulin or Charbon or their legal representatives following the ruling.

The court also ruled that Adecco and the two managers must jointly pay 1,200 euros damages to each of the 20 victims that were able to be identified, and 20,000 euros in damages to each of the three organisations that filed the lawsuit against it.

Samuel Thomas, founder of French anti-discrimination group "Maison des Potes", which filed the initial complaint, welcomed the court ruling but was disappointed by the level of the fines.

"For a real awakening among companies to block this discrimination, we need the penalties to be dissuasive," he told Reuters following the ruling.

It is rare for a criminal court to find companies guilty of discrimination because it is usually necessary to prove a racist intention, which is not the case in civil law. ($1 = 0.9139 euros (Reporting by Layli Foroudi; Editing by Alexander Smith)