Giving up alcohol for January ‘barbaric’ France
Abstaining from alcohol after Christmas could herald the end of civilisation, according to eminent figures in the French worlds of arts, academia and sport, who have urged their compatriots to keep on drinking.
In a lyrical appeal with a whiff of the Left Bank dinner table, 42 leaders in their fields have railed against a campaign to follow ‘‘the puritan Anglo-Saxon obsession of the dry January’’.
President Emmanuel Macron quashed a recent attempt to promote ‘‘le janvier sec’’, saying that wine was a noble ingredient of French life.
The appeal, drafted by celebrity chef Cyril Lignac, was endorsed by the likes of Emmanuel Krivine, conductor of the Orchestre National de France, retired tennis champion Amelie Mauresmo, and former rugby international Serge Blanco.
‘‘How do you recognise a civilisation that is collapsing? Perhaps from people’s lack of interest in its heritage and culture, opening the way to a general trampling of its values and its history,’’ the group declared.
They attacked those ‘‘who are rising up to stigmatise the consumption of alcohol and make drinkers feel guilty every time they caress the glass they are raising to their lips’’.
‘‘Why not imagine a month without sex, a month without sport, a month without words, a month without thought?’’ they asked.
The appeal was a riposte to a renewed attempt by health campaigners to encourage the French, who are among Europe’s heaviest drinkers, to try a seasonal abstention despite the official abandonment of a dry January.
‘‘All initiatives of this type run into the systematic opposition of the alcohol lobby," said Bernard Basset, of France’s national association for the prevention of alcoholism and addiction.