France must do more to tackle alcohol abuse and smoking, the country’s health minister has said, reports The Guardian.
Marisol Touraine said France was renowned for its healthcare but needed to do more in terms of preventing diseases. She said there was a very French form of denial over the hazards of alcohol, which is believed to cause an estimated 50,000 premature deaths a year in France.
Touraine also said the number of French women who smoke – and particularly those who continue to do so in the last three months of pregnancy – as well as the number of young and poor who light up was worrying.
Touraine said figures from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development showed the French consume an average 12 litres of pure alcohol a year, equivalent to about 120 bottles of wine, compared with a European average of 9.1 litres.
“I’m French, I like to drink a glass of wine … but the wine and alcohol lobby in France is powerful and has got into people’s heads that wine is good for the health, which remains to be proven,” she told journalists from the Anglo-American Press Association in Paris. “We drink less than 30 years ago, but still above the European average.”
The French government is battling attempts to water down a 1991 law that imposed restrictions on alcohol advertising. Touraine said the new challenge was “disguised advertising”, citing a 2013 ruling that fined Paris Match for an article on the Hollywood actor Scarlett Johansson’s deal with a celebrated French champagne house.
“So we see Mademoiselle Scarlett Johansson stretched out on a red sofa looking every bit the star she is, with a bottle in front of her on which we can see the brand label. The judges decided this was disguised advertising and should not be in a magazine, and it’s claimed this threatens France’s champagne industry,“ Touraine said.
“It’s just crazy. I’m not trying to harden the law, I’m saying don’t touch it.”