La loi Evin
French Listening Comprehension
Study Guide
Take a look at the following for help with any vocabulary that you might not
have understood in La loi Evin, then take
the test.
| Vocabulary | |
| broncher | to move, budge |
| le chèvrefeuille | honeysuckle |
| la concurrence | competition |
| désormais | from now on |
| dorénavant | from now on |
| un fléau | scourge, curse |
| un heurt | clash, bump, collision |
| la lâcheté | cowardice |
| la lutte | struggle, fight |
| mollement | half-heartedly, feebly, unenthusiastically |
| nocif | harmful, hazardous |
| préconiser | to strongly recommend |
| quant à | as for |
| réglementer | to regulate |
| la rengaine | refrain, repetitive song/expression |
| le saccage | destruction, wrecking |
| la santé | health |
| sinistré | devastated, disaster-stricken |
| un sondage | poll, survey |
| soutenir | to support |
| viticole | (adj) wine |
| Notes | |
| alcoolémie | Permissible levels of alcohol in the bloodstream of drivers are measured in grams per liter. In France, as in most European countries, the maximum level is 0.5. Britain has a higher limit—0.8 g/l—but a much lower road-death rate, which indicates either that alcohol is only one factor among many in causing accidents, or that the law in France has not been applied strictly enough. In fact, the recent change in attitude towards drunk driving in France has been startling. See note in section 2 of ChampsElysées 22-04 for more on how the number of fatal accidents has fallen. |
| un député | representative in France's lower house of parliament, the National Assembly |
| loi Evin | As in the United States, legislation in France often bears the name of the politician(s) sponsoring it. For example, an otherwise obscure member of the National Assembly named Gilles Carrez has been immortalized by the 1997 Loi Carrez, which, as every property buyer in France knows, stipulates that the exact floor surface area of a house or apartment must be noted in the sales contract. Likewise, the 2004 Loi Perben, named after the justice minister at the time, Dominique Perben, will go down in history as the law that introduced plea bargaining into the French legal system. The Evin law is named after the former Socialist health minister Claude Evin, who as a member of parliament remains a fierce critic of the current attempts to reform it. Before all the attention on its provisions restricting alcohol advertising, the Loi Evin was better-known for what it did to clamp down on smoking in public. After 1991, all restaurants were supposed to have separate smoking and nonsmoking areas, and any enclosed public space was to be tobacco-free. For years the law was observed more in the breach, but gradually, thanks to pressure from campaigners and growing public awareness, respect is taking hold. At the end of 2004, for example, smoking was completely banned on the TGV fast trains. |
| le gouvernement soutient l'alcool contre la santé publique |
The row over the reform of the Loi Evin is more complicated than the text here suggests. What it doesn't mention is that the amendment passed by the National Assembly in October 2004 is not definitive. The measure was tacked on to a rural affairs bill that was undergoing the so-called navette—or shuttle—between the Assembly and the Senate. The center-right government's response to the proposed amendment has certainly been confused, but until the issue is finally settled it would be wrong to assume it is merely taking the side of the wine lobby over the interests of public health. It should be noted that there are plenty of opposition Socialist deputies from wine-growing areas who also support relaxation of the Loi Evin. The background to the story is the crisis in the French wine industry, probably its worst since World War II. Competition from such new wine-producing countries as Australia and Chile, changing international tastes, and a historic decline in domestic consumption have combined to create a difficult set of market conditions. Figures for 2004 show that exports fell by nearly ten percent in value terms over 2003—the sixth successive decline. Meanwhile, the average Frenchman drinks 50 liters a year, compared to 125 liters 30 years ago. The industry argues that wine is part of French culture, not a mere alcoholic commodity, and thus should be exempted from the Loi Evin. Under the proposed amendment, drinks that "benefit from a label of origin or a geographical indication" could be advertised with "references relative to their qualitative characteristics." Other alcohol producers in Europe, particularly distillers of Scotch whisky, are monitoring the debate, since in principle any drink linked to a geographical place of origin in the EU could benefit from the same relaxation of advertising restrictions. All the more reason why the proposed amendment to the Loi Evin probably will not in the end be approved. For more on the crisis in the French wine world, try to see the 2004 documentary film Mondovino by the American Jonathan Nossiter. It is a plea for the old ways against the encroaching forces of globalization, but it is made with humor and compassion and does not moralize. |
| La loi Evin French Listening Comprehension Exercise |
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| Listen | Study | Test | ||
| Transcript Translation | ||||
| Sound files and transcript
were
originally published in Champs-Élysées audiomagazine (read my review) and are used with the permission of Champs-Élysées, Inc. |
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