Wine-lover Macron told to put a cork in it
Nine eminent doctors have accused French President Macron of endangering the health of the nation by encouraging people to drink wine.
Writing in Le Figaro this week, the doctors suggested that the claret-loving head of state could end up before a court of law on charges of failing to protect the nation from alcohol-related diseases.
One claimed he was spreading fake news by arguing that wine was never used for binge-drinking.
There has been a heated debate between connoisseurs such as Mr Macron, who see wine as a French cultural emblem, and campaigners who say it should be treated as a health risk.
The row began last month when Agnes Buzyn, the health minister, said that wine was an ‘‘alcohol like any other’’, and ‘‘bad for the health’’.
Her words infuriated her cabinet colleagues, who pointed out that wine and spirit export generated €12.9 billion for the French economy last year, and wine-industry leaders, who expressed concern that she was
‘‘Young people get drunk at an accelerated rate with strong drinks or beer, but they don’t do so with wine.’’ President Emmanuel Macron
planning to tighten 1991 legislation that limits alcohol advertising in an attempt to curb alcoholism.
Their fears proved unfounded, however, as Macron entered the debate and slapped down his minister.
Contradicting her every word, the president said during the Paris Agricultural Fair last week: ‘‘Me, I drink wine for lunch and dinner. There is a public health scourge when young people get drunk at an accelerated rate with strong drinks or beer, but they don’t do so with wine.
‘‘As long as I am president, there will be no amendments to tighten [the 1991 alcohol advertisement legislation].’’
His comments appalled the signatories of the article in Le Figaro, who included Gerard Dubois, professor of public health at the Academy of Medicine, and Amine Benyamina, professor of psychiatry at Paris South University.
They said that alcoholic drinks killed 50,000 people a year in France, and that wine, which accounted for 60 per cent of the alcohol consumed in the country, was responsible for most of those deaths.
They added: ‘‘If the policy on alcohol stays as it is now, political leaders will inevitably have to answer for their acts before a court of law in the future.’’