- According to a study by Public Health France, Ile-de-France is the metropolitan region where people drink the least alcohol on average, far behind Occitania, the first region to drink daily.
- This trend is not new and has lasted for twenty years.
- Several reasons come into account but the cultural factor remains the most significant.
"It's been 12 beers that I put on," attacked in 1981 the Parisian Renaud in his song I missed Telefoot . Today, such behavior has become more than a minority, according to a study by Public Health France published Tuesday. Indeed, "alcohol consumption, both among young people aged 17 and in adults aged 18 to 75, was lower in Ile-de-France in 2017 than in other metropolitan regions," says The report. Better, the occasional important alcoholic drinks (6 glasses or more in a single occasion) monthly - roughly, what is called binge drinking - are the lowest of metropolitan France with a rate of 13.9% in Ile-de-France , while daily consumption in the capital region fell 13.8 points, from 19.9% to 6.1%.
But how is this lower consumption in the Ile de France explained? For François Beck, researcher at Inserm and former director of the OFDT (French Observatory of Drugs and Drug Addiction), nothing new under the sun. "This difference of Ile-de-France compared to other regions is something that has been observed for twenty years and which is becoming more refined," he explains. But it remains a subject of questioning. All the more, he adds that these observations of lower consumption apply as much to adults as to adolescent populations.
Cultural factors play to the full
Unfortunately, "these are trends that are not very easy to decipher, notes the researcher, because here we observe in this study the regional level, but it is very intertwined with other factors, notably social and cultural". So goodbye certainties and ready-made explanations, make way for hypotheses. The first of these is that there are “cultural factors that play a strong role, with environments that are less favorable than elsewhere for certain modes of alcoholism. So in some regions, such as Brittany, drunkenness is positively associated with partying, which is generally less the case in Ile-de-France. "In the provinces, we take an aperitif or an afterwork and we go to dinner behind, in Ile-de-France, we go back to dinner at home", adds Nicolas El Hakim, president of Umih restaurateurs and owner of two restaurants in Paris .
Furthermore, even if it is not the most important factor, the lower accessibility to alcohol in Ile-de-France, in particular because of the higher price, also plays a role. "The fact of not having very cheap alcohol available will help limit consumption," says François Beck. "We have a price barrier so we consume less," says Nicolas El Hakim. In Ile-de-France, the Moscow mule or Cosmopolitan type cocktail is very fashionable but will cost around 15-18 euros. In the provinces, we are more at 10-12 euros. "
Finally, the president of the Umih restaurateurs puts forward a rather trivial reason. “Ile-de-France alcohol consumers are much more vigilant about the limit of alcohol consumption before getting behind the wheel, because there are many more traffic stops than in the provinces. People are on a glass of alcohol or two at most. We know that if a customer takes an aperitif, he will not take wine, or a single glass, he will not go on the bottle. There would be more Sam in Ile-de-France than elsewhere and therefore fewer drinkers.
Society
Why in Occitania do we drink more alcohol daily than elsewhere?
Society
Young people drink less alcohol and it is not clear why
- Health
- Party
- Evening
- Alcohol
- Binge drinking
- Paris