As the wine sector itself acknowledges, it is an “historic” moment. After years of battling with the public authorities, makers and distributors of wine have at last found themselves recognised as a key voice when it comes to tackling alcohol abuse – something that kills up to 49,000 people a year in France. In the coming days the main wine sector lobby group Vin & Société, which represents more than 500,000 people in the industry, will publish a report on the subject written in conjunction with representatives of the beer and spirits sectors.
The initiative is a direct result of the approach taken by President Emmanuel Macron, who never misses a chance to extol the benefits of drinking wine. The issue is being handled at the Élysée by an advisor who has considerable experience in the subject matter. For Audrey Bourolleau, the president's advisor on 'agriculture, fisheries, forests and rural development' was herself the managing director of wine lobby group Vin & Société from 2012 to May 2017 – the month Macron was elected.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
Her nomination as an advisor was greeted with anger by associations and groups working to prevent and reduce alcohol abuse and addiction. But the row has not deterred the Élysée. For Mediapart understands that Audrey Bourolleau has been handling wine sector issues and has not recused herself because of her past involvement in the sector; nor, it seems, has she even considered doing so.
On the contrary; she has just helped serve up what the wine lobby has been awaiting for years. In March this year the Élysée officially proposed that producers and distributors should be involved in discussions on an alcohol abuse prevention plan. This marks a radical departure with the past. “The president said to us: 'I'm inviting you to take part in the prevention revolution,'” says Valérie Fuchs, in charge of communications at Vin & Société. “It's historic that it should be co-developed between the state and the sector. There's an openness of approach whereas up to now we've faced sterile, dogmatic and unrealistic stances.”
However, this approach is a tough blow for the groups and individuals traditionally involved in the fight against alcoholism, especially those who consider that the wine sector should not be involved in organising prevention measures. They point out that one does not ask the tobacco lobby to get involved in campaigns against cancer.
One of those who has been trenchant on this point is the current health minister Agnès Buzyn. When she was president of the Institut National du Cancer (INCa), Professor Buzyn shook the viticulture industry by criticising the adoption of an amendment aimed at watering down the impact of existing laws on alcohol advertising – known as the loi Evian – when the then economy minister Emmanuel Macron's legislation on relaxing restrictions on various industrial sectors was being debated.
“We have to look at the reality,” she told La Croix newspaper in June 2015. “We have to stop this argument that says wine is good for the health. There can certainly be a small benefit in terms of cardio-vascular prevention but at very low dosage. Above half a glass a day the negative effects start to outweigh the positive effects. Afterwards the risk increases with the quantity of alcohol consumed. Whether we like it or not, we have to tell the truth: there is no threshold [of consumption] below which the risk of cancer is nil.”
Buzyn was quick to restate her position when she became health minister under prime minister Édouard Philippe and President Macron. “The wine industry today suggests that wine is different from other alcohols. In terms of public health it's exactly the same if you drink wine, beer, vodka, whisky, there's zero difference!” she said. “We've allowed the French public to believe that wine gives protection, that it brings benefits that other alcohols don't give. That's false. Scientifically, wine is an alcohol like any other.”
These declarations provoked outrage in the world of viticulture and Emmanuel Macron, who had spent several months trying to forge closer links with France's rural world, felt obliged step in. “We have to stop annoying French people with such daftness,” the president declared when speaking to 1,000 young farmers at the Élysée at the end of February this year.
Today the positions held by the presidency and the winemakers seem in complete harmony. “The sector's position is this: the viticulture-wine sector is going to do its bit on prevention, we are responsible. We need to leave behind those caricatures about on one side the nice addiction specialists and the ANPAA [editor's note, the national alcohol and addiction association, the Association Nationale de Prévention en Alcoologie et Addictologie], and on the other the incompetents in the [wine] sector” says Valérie Fuchs.
“In the past, each worked in their own corner, whereas now we're bringing the parties closer,” says Roland Courteau, a socialist senator for the Aude département or county in the south of France since 1980. He has been a fervent opponent of the “stigmatisation of wine” for at least as long. Courteau, who is also vice president of the 'Vigne et Vin' working group in the Senate, scarcely hides his pleasure at seeing the influence of the Ministry of Health weakened in this way. “What is the Ministry of Health? It's the politics of banning. For public authorities it's easier to ban than to educate. Moreover, it requires less resources. But what are the end results?” he asks.
Roland Couteau went to the Élysée in January 2018 and has a happy recollection of his visit. “I met two of Emmanuel Macron's advisors including Audrey Bourolleau who I've come across for a while now. At least we've finally got someone who expresses a view other than that of the Ministry of Health. Both assured me of the desire to establish prevention as a priority and to invite the viticulture profession to co-develop a prevention strategy. That's something new!” said the senator.
But what about Audrey Bourolleau's conflict of interest given her previous role in the industry? “That's journalistic fantasy,” says Valérie Fuchs from Vin & Société. “Audrey Bourolleau is not a Trojan horse for the sector. If she was omnipresent, if the sector was omnipresent, we'd have got everything passed.” She reluctantly accepts that the advisor's position constitutes a “particular situation because the president also wanted to surround himself with experts”. Valérie Fucks adds: “A conflict of interests? What does that mean? That Audrey Bourolleau has some shares in a vineyard? No. That she's still an employee of Vin & Société? No. She takes part in our activities? No. As far as I'm concerned, a conflict of interest is when there's a financial benefit.”
However, that is not really the case and this is where the problem lies. Defined by legislation from October 11th, 2013, a conflict of interests refers to “any situation of overlap between a public interest and private or public interests...of a kind to influence or appear to influence the independent, impartial and objective exercise of a duty”. That is why ministerial advisors must now inform the ethics body the Haute Autorité pour la Transparence de la Vie Publique (HATVP) of their declarations of interest, mentioning in particular their past professional activities.
According to the law, an advisor must forestall any situations of conflict they might find themselves in by stepping aside. That was the case, for example, with Thierry Aulagnon, who was recruited as chief of staff by finance and economy minister Michel Sapin in 2016, and who kept aout of all issues relating to the bank Société Générale, his previous employer. In August 2016 Michel Sapin had also written to all members of his office telling them to “ignore” Thierry Aulagnon on any issues relating to Société Générale as well as the defence company Thales, the bank BPCE, Airline Air France-KLM and companies We Share Bonds and MAB Finances with whom his chief of staff had had a connection.
Despite these strict rules, no one at the Élysée thought it right to ask Audrey Bourolleau to step aside from issues involving wine. The advisor consults with sector officials and elected representatives with an interest in the issue and at the start of 2018 met a delegation from Vin & Société as if there was nothing untoward about it. On June 5th this year she also met with a delegation led by Nathalie Delattre, a senator from the major wine-producing département of the Gironde in south west France which includes Bordeaux, who has accused health minister Agnès Buzyn of wanting to make France a “land of prohibition”. A member of that delegation, Jean-Marie Garde, president of the Pomerol wine producers group in the Bordeaux region, said: “We had a meeting to discuss agricultural taxation and problems in the passing on of winemaking properties. I think the Élysée was quite receptive to that.”
Enlargement : Illustration 2
Questioned by Mediapart, Audrey Bourolleau insisted that she had “never found myself in a position of conflict of interest” since taking up her position. Indeed she said: “Vin & Société bring together all French wine-making professions, that is to say all winemakers and all the [wine] merchants from the whole of France.” The office of the secretary general at the Élysée supports this view. “Vin & Société is not a body representing a particular interest,” it says. “It is a non-profit making association involved with the whole of the wine-viticulture industry.”
This is a curious argument as it suggests that defending the interests of an entire sector cannot work against the general interest. What would be said, for example, if a lobbyist from the pharmaceutical trade body Les Entreprises du Médicament (LEEM) became the president's health advisor?
Vin & Société, which sees itself as a lobby group, is on the list of representative interest groups at the public ethics body HATVP. For the final six months of 2017 the wine body says it spent between 50,000 and 75,000 euros, in particular to promote “a model of responsible and moderate consumption of wine in France” and to “create awareness” among public authorities about what is at stake in the national health strategy. On this point the group is clear: its aim is to “influence the drafting of a public decision”. Vin & Société also spells out in its documentation who are the public figures it targets with its lobbying. Its main target? “Colleague of the president of the Republic.”
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- The French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter