France     French Exception
	As far as binge drinking goes, it's vive la résistance!
	By JAMES GRAFF | Paris

Posted Sunday, December 11, 2005; 12.20GMT
Le Café Noir near Les Halles in central Paris attracts a clientele of all ages with its retro sophistication and a soundtrack of rock and techno. Yet overlaying the din of music and chinking glass there's another buzz: conversation. Even the young customers are there not just to drink, but to converse — intelligently. "We don't have the problem like in England and elsewhere, where people drink until they can't stand up," says Charlotte Quantin, 26, the bartender. "When we get drunk, we get stupid, and that's just not right." Sidi Lemine, 25, nursing a drink at the bar, also distinguishes between drinking habits either side of the Channel. "A girl who drinks a lot can be impressive in England," he says. "In France, it's just not classy."

Binge drinking is one of the behaviors, along with hooliganism, that the French call "the British disease." Snarky, perhaps, but it's based in fact. "Traditionally the French have always drunk a little too much regularly, while the British have drunk irregularly but way too much," says Dr. Michel Craplet of the French National Association for the Prevention of Alcoholism and Addiction. And like their parents, French youth — and especially French girls — are less prone to binge drinking than the Brits, and other Europeans as well. According to a 2003 study by the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD), only 4% of French 15- to 16-year-old boys and 1% of girls that age had been drunk 10 or more times during the previous 12 months. That's roughly half the rate of Italians and a fraction of that in Britain, Eastern Europe and Scandinavia.

Legislators in those places might take note of the strict laws in France that prohibit alcohol advertising aimed at youth. In 2004 the government doubled tax rates on "kid-friendly" drinks like alcopops, which, says Dr. Philippe Batel, head of the addiction unit at Beaujon Hospital in Clichy outside Paris, make up only 0.3% of alcohol consumed in France. "As a country of wine, France can afford to crack down on such beverages without hurting its economic interests," he notes.

And the wine-loving culture of France appears less vulnerable to binge-drinking trends than other European countries that traditionally venerate the grape. Psychologist Marie Choquet, who steered some of the ESPAD studies in France, says that alcohol is "culturally integrated" in the French family, where moderation is encouraged. Alcohol use among youth has been pretty stable in France: in 1999, 12.5% of boys aged 16 and 17 drank regularly, compared to 12.2% in 2003; the rates for same-age girls dropped in that period from 5.6% to 4.6%. "France has this image of the French woman who has to be seductive, sexy and elegant, and that isn't compatible with the image of a drunk girl on the ground," says Janine Mossuz-Lavau, a sociologist at political-science university Sciences Po.

Still, experts warn that France can't expect its culture to prove any more resistant to binge drinking than it has to Google and Starbucks. Dr. François Paille, president of the French Society of Alcohol Studies, worries about teens who are starting to drink at a younger age, with the aim "specifically to get drunk." Craplet warns that his compatriots are drinking less at meals and more at parties. But, for now at least, there's intelligent debate on drinking — even in bars.

Reported by Julia Mason and Grant Rosenberg/Paris

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