The French Parliament adopted on the 19th of January 2005, an amendment to the French law on Alcohol Advertisement (the so-called Evin Law). This amendment was initially intended to allow more room for wine advertisement.
However, in a country where alcohol kills 45,000 people and costs 17.6 thousand millions € each year, further promotion of wine consumption was considered nonsense, as claimed by public health prevention campaigns.
The amendment is the result of a consensus between wine supporters and public health specialists.
Clarification of the legislation
The amendment allows the use of objective characteristics in the promotion of wine, but bans any promotion that uses qualitative arguments.
According to ANPAA (the French National Association of prevention of alcoholism and addiction) - an EPHA Member -, the amendment clarifies the Evin Law without modifying it dramatically: the Evin Law has always allowed to promote a product when providing objective information .
Wine producers will be able to use facts such as the geographical origin, description of the color and taste, without including any qualitative indications (such as pleasure or desire "produced" by the consumption of that particular product).
Using models to promote wine is also forbidden.
A battle won by Public Health advocates
ANPAA has been on the forefront of the battle since early 2004.
In January, ANPAA went to court to ban two adverts on Bourgogne and Bordeaux wines. The French Court of Justice agreed with ANPAA, based on the fact that those two advertisements did not respect the Evin Law.
Since then, very powerful wine lobbyists have tried to influence French MPs to make the Evin Law more flexible. Last autumn, the 120 French MPs members of the wine lobby, presented several amendments which placed a risk to the public health, according to ANPAA and various other Public Health organisations.
However, Mr Philippe Douste-Blazy - Minister of Health, Solidarity and Family - and Mr Raffarin - French Prime Minister - were opposed to the MPs.
The amendment proposed by the Ministers, were formally adopted on the 19 January 2005.
Even though ANPAA welcomes the adoption of this balanced clause, they intend to follow up closely its application during the first months.
For more information, please read ANPAA’s press release (in French).
ANPAA’s position on French Alcohol Legislation
