The Folly That Is France
In this most political of seasons, it's comforting to know that the politics of other nations can be even nuttier than our own. Proof comes from France, where two recent court decisions out of Paris this month have demonstrated the zealousness of France's insistence on curtailing the promotion of alcohol, which inevitably means wine in this most wine-centric of countries.
In one case, the magnificently named Tribunal de Grande Instance (the French equivalent of a small claims court) ruled that an utterly conventional newspaper article, one that recommended various French Champagnes, could be construed as advertising, and that the newspaper, Le Parisien, therefore was in violation of the strictures of the so-called Évin law.
Back in 1991, an increasingly health-obsessed French government passed a law named after its legislative proponent, Claude Évin, banning alcohol advertising on television and at sporting events and severely limiting advertising in print (it also regulated tobacco advertising).
Under the Évin law, wine producers were forbidden to make any claims about quality. Indeed, they couldn't mention anything relating to smell, taste, or color. Just the name, manufacturer, alcohol content, and appellation of origin were allowed. Only in 2005, over the objection of France's then-minister of social affairs, was the law modestly amended to allow "references to the qualitative characteristics of the product." (President Sarkozy says he is in favor of softening the severity of the Évin law, but so far has taken no legislative action.) This is why, and how, the Paris court on January 9 could declare that a newspaper article recommending wines could be seen, in the words of the court, as "intended to promote sales of alcoholic beverages in exercising a psychological effect on the reader that incited him or her to buy alcohol."
The case was brought to court by the National Association for the Prevention of Alcoholism and Addiction, which actively litigates on behalf of the Évin law. The court awarded damages of 5,000 euros to be paid to the association.
A week later, on January 16, in yet another case initiated by the association, the local court for the Paris region found against the Champagne producer Moët et Chandon and the restaurant group Brasseries Flo (which owns 15 restaurants, including such famous Parisian establishments as Bofinger, Balzar, La Coupole, and Vaudeville) for their joint promotional campaign for a rosé Champagne using the slogan "La nuit est rose" ("the night is pink"), accompanied by a photograph of a bottle of Moët rosé Champagne surrounded by rose petals.
The use of this phrase, the court said, "creates an association of ideas between the consumption of rosé Champagne and seeing 'la vie en rose,' which in everyday usage signifies having a euphoric approach to life."
Demonstrating that it wasn't taken in by subversive subliminal imagery, the court showed its contextual chops by noting that Moët's promotional photo "accentuated by the pink color against a black background that symbolizes the night refers to a party, the effervescent rose petals reinforcing the idea of euphoria. "It was precisely this sort of symbolic imagery," the court declared, "that the legislature wanted to limit in the interests of public health, allowing instead only the most objective references possible."
In an era of political correctness — usually seen by Europeans as an American affliction — the French have gratifyingly made us seem a model of sensibility. Fueled by a law only a Jacobin could love, two different French courts have managed, in the space of little more than a week, to both trample on freedom of the press and proclaim that in France, of all places, la vie en rose is not worth living.
One can only wonder what Edith Piaf would be singing today — and where?
