French wine makers, health groups square off over ads

Perhaps not surprisingly, the French wine industry has considerable influence on decision makers, with more than 75,000 potential voters employed in this sector alone. Wine has also been a mainstay of France's export business for centuries, but in latter years it has come under increasing pressure from New World producers such as Australia or South Africa.

Faced with the increasing competition abroad, French wine makers have been keen to rekindle consumption at home, especially after tough new laws on drink driving took a further bite out of domestic volumes this year.

They have therefore been lobbying hard for a relaxation of the Evin legislation, in particular the combining of wine and spirits into one category. Beer, which has a much lower alcoholic strength than either wine or spirits, is not subject to the same advertising restrictions, and wine makers hope to use the same logic to distance themselves from producers of strong alcoholic beverages.

Raffarin's government is currently considering the proposal, and the prime minister himself has hinted that a change might be possible to allow the collective advertising of wines. Moderate consumption of wine, he said in February this year, had been shown to be beneficial to health, and the prohibition of wine advertising sat uncomfortably with his government's aim of improving public health.

Such a change would certainly be welcomed by wine makers, who have repeatedly asked for the right to advertise their wines not along brand lines but by region or appellation such as Bordeaux or Burgundy.

Such advertising is common in other countries, not least the UK, the biggest export market for French wines, and the absurdity of not being able to promote French wines in the same way in their domestic market has frequently been highlighted.

For example, wine producers in the southern Languedoc region (France's biggest vineyard) were recently banned from advertising their products during a rugby match featuring one of the region's biggest teams, Narbonne. The local industry association pointed out that while the match was televised in France, it actually took place in the UK, and that it would have been perfectly acceptable for the English players' jerseys to carry the words 'Languedoc Wines', even though their French counterparts were prevented from having 'Vins du Languedoc' on their kit.

It is cases such as this which have led to the calls for a change to the Evin law, not least from MPs representing France's main wine regions, there is an increasingly vociferous health lobby calling for more, not fewer, restrictions on alcohol advertising.

One such group, the National Association for the Prevention of Alcoholism and Addiction (ANPAA) held a press conference in Paris this week to set out its reasons for opposing any possible change to the loi Evin, focusing primarily on the health risks associated with alcohol abuse, a tactic which should win it considerable support within the government as it struggles to cope with spiralling health costs.

The group pointed out that there were at least 45,000 alcohol-related deaths each year in France (cancer, cirrhosis, dementia etc), and a further 3,000 fatal accidents related to alcohol consumption. The cost to the health service of these deaths was €17.6 billion a year, 1.4 per cent of France's GDP.

It suggested that the wine industry's contention that the lower alcohol content of wine somehow made it less of a risk. Two thirds of French consumers treated for alcohol-related diseases were wine drinkers, it said, adding that 60 per cent of France's intake of pure alcohol came from wine alone.

Given Raffarin's apparent support, a change in the law does look likely, but the hard task will be to ensure that the new-look loi Evin is flexible enough to allow the promotion of moderate wine consumption as a health benefit, thus stimulating consumption and keeping the powerful wine lobby happy, without inadvertently pushing up levels of excessive consumption as well and adding an even greater burden on state finances.