Drink-driving ok, French wine industry decides

Trade bodies such as the national wine producers’s association CNAOC, and Afivin, an umbrella organization representing wine producers as well as distributors and retailers, are mounting a concerted campaign to persuade people drinking and driving is not as dangerous as it’s made out to be.

‘People are so afraid of the police these days that they’re not drinking any wine at all,’ CNAOC director Pascal Bobillier-Monnot said.

Pascal Rousseaux of Afivin, which is planning a €350,000 initiative to distribute alcohol breath test kits to restaurants across France next year, said ‘we believe the government has a duty to provide information which it has failed.’

He added diners should be told they could enjoy ‘two or three glasses’ and still be fit to drive.

France has one of the worst road safety records in Europe. Of 7,242 road deaths a year, 29.5% involve drivers who are over the drink-drive limit. In the UK (whose population is almost identical to France’s) the figures are 3,400 and 15% respectively.

Richard Freeman of the UK Automobile Association (the AA) told decanter.com, ‘We advise people not to drink at all. While some people are fine after a glass of wine, others are all over the place.’

The wine industry is reacting to a new French government initiative to promote road safety. Roadside police checks have been stepped up and the result, the government says, is a 20% reduction in road deaths in 2003.

Another result is a drop in restaurant wine sales – by about 15% in a few months, producers say.

‘There’s no doubt about it. The enforcement effort and government rhetoric have led to a drop in wine consumption in France,’ Bobillier-Monnot said.

France has a culture of drinking at lunchtime and has never had a serious regime of enforcement. In Britain, pro-drinking and driving sentiments would get short shrift, Freeman said.

‘That sort of message wouldn’t be tolerated over here. The backlash would be colossal.’