Sulkunen-P. Drinking in France 1965-1979: An analysis of household consumption data. British Journal of Addiction, 84(1):61-72, 1989. (102442) 
    Alcohol consumption has diminished in France for three decades. In this respect, France is an exception to other industrialized countries. However, in one respect France conforms to a regularity found in longitudinal time-series studies comparing different countries: traditional beverages, in this case, wine, have given place to new drinking, beer and imported spirits. In this sense, drinking patterns have become modernized and now resemble those found in other Western industrialized countries. The article, based on a series of household consumption surveys that include purchases of alcoholic beverages by households, studies in what way this modernization is taking place. A breakdown of the data by sociodemographic groups shows that saturation as such does not explain the change. The groups that already have been at the lowest level of consumption, the middle classes, have diminished their consumption further and the other groups, the peasantry and the working class, have followed them. The development has been parallel both in big cities and rural areas. The analysis by region reveals that in France the use of alcohol and especially wine is no longer related to alcohol production, the way it is in international comparisons, producing countries being also the heaviest consumers. On the other hand, consumption patterns, as reflected in the beverage composition, have not levelled out between regions. One conclusion of the study is that the culturally dominating social dimension in France is that of class. 18 Ref.
___________________________
(from a posting in July 2004:)

I picked up an interesting book in Paris:

Jacqueline Freyssinet-Dominjon & Anne-Catherine Wagner, L'alcool en fête -- manières de boire de la nouvelle jeunesse étudiante (Party drinking: ways of drinking of the new student youth). Paris: L'Harmattan, 2003. ISBN 2-7475-5613-1 €24.00 (24 Euros)

The book is based on qualitative interviews with 226 students in France aged 18 to 29, with some bias in representation away from students "the most centred on their studies".

The authors found the rules of drinking in the group studied somewhat in evolution, with informants often contradicting themselves, and insisting that "I do not judge" others along with describing the rules (p. 18).

"The consumption of alcoholic drinks was dissociated from the everyday activities of life. It is in the name of this principle that two ways of drinking are condemned [by the students], which are habitually considered as opposites."

"The first is -- no surprise here -- that of the alcoholic, of whom the image recurred regularly" (p. 20). The alcoholic is presented stereotypically, often as a stranger to their universes, even if some mention family members. Even the heaviest drinkers have little chance to identify with this portrait. The alcoholic "is evoked with a mixture of indignation and commiseration". He is "drunk in the morning. He is violent. He consumes nearly exclusively red wine." More than anything, he is "not young". An alcoholic drinks "every day, and cannot conceive of passing a day without drinking".

"It is in the name of these principles that the youth take care to mark their distance from another way of drinking, that of the moderate everyday drinker, which is to say often that of their parents." Barbara (aged 19), who drinks 6-8 glasses of whiskey and cola every Friday and Saturday, says that even someone who drinks only a half-bottle of wine, if they drink it every day -- "for me that person is an alcoholic". (p. 21) The association of drinking with food is explicitly rejected: another informant says "I cannot reconcile alcohol and eating; it leaves me with a dirty taste in my mouth. I prefer to drink water or a cola with food" (p. 20).

The dailiness of consumption, even of a small quantity, disquiets the conscience of these students. Conversely, the rule is "I'm not a drunk, I don't drink every day".

"This generation thus reverses the [opposition] habitually established between alcoholism and 'drinking well'..... This system of opposition is absent among the questioned students.... Drunkenness in itself is quite rarely condemned by the students. Instead, 'dependence' (defined by the fact of drinking every day) seems disquieting.... The two figures [the moderate everyday drinker and the alcoholic] can be all the more easily reconciled because the daily moderate drinker and the alcoholic are associated with the same beverage, little appreciated by the youth: red wine.... 'For me red wine has really too much connotation of alcoholic'" (p. 23). It is associated with the parental generation, but also with the working-class world.

"Drinking is above all a festive act. That is the first norm and the most important in the student population" (p. 24) It is associated with a binary division of time, with a "necessary rupture" between the time of work and the time of going out. One such division is between summer vacation and university term-time. A second is between the weekdays and the weekend. Barbara, again, explains that she only drinks on nights when she can sleep in the next day. The accounts also speak of "an alternation between periods of control and of letting go".

How the evenings and consumption develop is described (pp. 32-35). Four types of drinkers are described (pp. 36-40): the non-drinker or drinker only of small amounts (36%); the regular moderate drinker "or 'adult' drinker" (4%); the weekend drinker (46%), described by the initials of Friday, Saturday, Sunday ("VSD"); and the "'drinker for the drinking's sake' of an extended high-schooler status" (14%).

It is noted that to a considerable degree the typology revolves around attitudes to drunkenness. Females were more likely to seek a state of "gaiety", while males were often less circumspect about seeking drunkenness (pp. 43-46). A two-page spread of quotes on how many glasses to drink ranges from one to 14 and more. Though some admit it is sexist, informants are less accepting of a woman who drinks a lot. "The reasons advanced reveal a built-in conception of the nature of a woman, sweeter, more fragile and thus less well adapted to strong alcohol" (p. 51).

This summarizes just some of the beginning of the book, which goes on to a more detailed analysis of ways of drinking and also attempts an analysis of the influence of alcohol advertising, in the wake of the Loi Evin limiting alcohol advertising in France. I thought particularly this early part of the book was worth summarizing here, because the findings are so striking and contrary to the image of "continental drinking" so cherished in the Nordic and anglo-saxon worlds.

Robin

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NEW BOOK:

Artemio Baigorri, Ramón Fernández y GIESYT

BOTELLÓN: UN CONFLICTO POSTMODERNO

Ed. Icaria, Barcelona, 2004

http://www.icariaeditorial.com



The book BOTELLON: UN CONFLICTO POSTMODERNO (Botellón: a postmodern

conflict) is the result of a systematic work of research carried out by

Research Group in Social and Territorial Studies from University of

Extremadura during years 2001-2003. It shows, not only the knowledge

obtained from the research about this phenomenon, the "botellón", but

also, by means of the use of diverse techniques as qualitative as

quantitative, a good example of Action Research applied to prevention of

alcohol consumption in young people

The "botellón" is a massive meeting of young people, in opened spaces of

free access, in order to combine and drink alcohol and spirits which

they have previously acquired in commerce, listen to music and speak.

It shows a kind of new conflcit, nevertheless. Traditionally, conflicts

has been determined by production (class struggle) or by social

beliefs (nationalisms, religious conflicts). Nevertheless, the conflict

related to "botellón" is focussed on the consumption scope, the main

factor of grouping and creation of identities in contemporary society.

In that sense, we can speak of a postmodern conflict. But also, it's a

postmodern conflict because it's, in fact, a social divertimento, one

of those conflicts which take part in the show, in which all fight

against all, and where there is an only winner, never present, never

explicit: in this case, the multinational corporations of alcohol and

spirits.

The authors carried out a research on habits of nocturnal leisure in

youths, focussed on the phenomenon of "botellón" in around the region

of Extremadura (Spain). By means of the comparison of their results

with other data available about other regions in Spain and other

countries, we can verify its global character, in the essential, of this

kind of phenomena, even they acquire similar names in other countries.

The "botellón" isn't a specific Spanish phenomenon, but responds to

the tendencies on nocturnal leisure we can observe in Europe.

In the region of Extremadura, the "botellón" wasn't considered a problem

by itself, but the problem was related to those youngsters who go out in

the nights, drink and even consume drugs without their parents apparently

being conscious of this. Those youngsters are our future and

who we can lose by the way if we aren't able to articulate, not only

substitute policies, but also attractive policies for the own young

people with a principal purpose: to move them away from a kind of leisure

based on drug consumption, as well legal as illegal.

Adults, above all since the middle of last century XX, extended urbi

et orbe a model of nocturnal leisure focussed on alcohol. Alcohol

consumption has never been so much intense or extended as people

believe. People don't drink because they have to do it or because the

peer group commands to it. Simply, people drink because the dominant

global cultural model imposes it.

Prof. Artemio Baigorri


-----Original Message-----
From: Alcohol and Drugs History Society [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of David Fahey
Sent: Friday, September 16, 2005 5:23 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: fewer wine-drinkers in France

Noticed an AP story in today's New York Times re the decline of wine-drinking in France: almost all the French who drink wine regularly are over 35, just over half the French population drink wine, and the number of French wine drinkers has dropped by a million over the last five years.  May I ask ADHS why?  Comparative data for other countries?  I think that in the USA wine drinking is more common now than a generation ago, and beer-drinking and whiskey-drinking are what are in decline.