Total crackdown on online alcohol promotion in France, health lobby report will recommend

(Decanter) - The health lobby in France has invoked the Evin Law in a call for stricter limits on what bloggers and social media users can write about wine online.

A report on the issues of addiction in France entitled ‘Les Dommages Liés Aux Addictions et les Strategies Validées pour Reduire Ces Dommages’ (Damage related to addictions and strategies for reducing the damage) is being prepared as part of the background to forming government policy from 2013-2017.

One of the suggestions put forward is that alcohol promotion should be formally forbidden on the internet and social media, including promotion of wine.

Specific sites belonging to producers, online wine merchants or wine tourism sites would be exempt, but wine bloggers would fall under the definition of sites that would be no longer authorised, as would any specific advertising or promotion of wine.

‘We need to return to the key undertakings of the Evin Law [the draconian and unpopular 1991 law which regulates the advertising of alcohol and tobacco],’ writes Professor Michel Reynaud, the author of the report. He points out that since a modification of the law in 2009, many online sites have been allowed to relax their strict anti-alcohol rules.