France's hidden love of the bottle

A journalist's tale of his battle with booze has sparked debate over the country's self-image as a nation of moderate wine-lovers

The posters, on hoardings across France, show a slightly dishevelled media executive in his 50s, on a jetty, a bag in his hand, a Swiss lake behind, staring with vacant, battered, tired eyes into the middle distance.

He is an unlikely hero, but Herve Chabalier, author of the book One for the Road (Le dernier pour la route), was being lauded by French journalists after a film based on his battle with alcoholism came out to critical acclaim.

"Truthful, clear and sober," said the Nouvel Observateur weekly magazine. A story that is "profoundly human", said the mass-circulation daily Ouest-France.

But the film, in which Chabalier is played by Francois Cluzet, has gone beyond entertainment, provoking an unprecedented debate on alcoholism, long a taboo subject in France.

Chabalier, 67, founder of the press agency Capa and a renowned foreign correspondent, has not drunk for seven years since the treatment for alcoholism on which the film is based. He said there was "denial" of the problem in his native land.

"Everywhere you are pushed to drink. It is a very strong social symbol.

"For having fun, for crying, there is alcohol. It is part of France. But the moment it goes too far, then you are cast out," he said.

"People don't want to talk about it or recognise it."

Though the French are often seen, and see themselves, as a nation of moderate drinkers, certainly compared with their neighbours in the UK, statistics reveal similar levels of alcohol consumption and dependence.

According to Inserm, a French public health research centre, five million French people have medical, psychological or social problems linked to alcohol abuse and at least two million are dependent - levels comparable with anywhere in Europe.

"National stereotypes strongly affect how alcoholism is viewed," said Dr Philippe Batel, a practising psychiatrist in Paris and an author. "Here we see our own alcohol consumption as part of our culture of l'art de vivre, of our history as a wine-producing country, and as part of our treasured gastronomy. We look at drinking in Britain and see a simple desire to get drunk.

"But in fact these cultural models are totally false. In the UK, alcoholism is more visible. In France, it stays hidden."

Last year an attempt by the Government to ban clubs and bars from offering evenings of unlimited drinks on payment of a fixed ticket price provoked a revolt from winemakers, who said it would mean the end of winetasting events and accused the Government of "undermining our national heritage".

The fight against alcoholism in France has a long history. A report in the New York Times told readers of a congress held in Paris "to deliberate upon means to eradicate the evil of excessive alcohol consumption in the republic".

"Eminent men of letters and clergy of various denominations [were] joining hands in a fight against the common foe," the newspaper's reporter said.

The date was January 24, 1904.

- OBSERVER